1919

James T McGlynn (JT) purchases a bakery in downtown Minneapolis, MN and changes the name to McGlynn Bakeries.

1923

JT, after learning about the national problem of calcium deficiency, begins adding di-basic calcium phosphate to his white yeast made products - the first bakery in the nation to do so.

To prove his bread is better, he hires a laboratory to feed mice only bread and water - McGlynn bread vs other bakery bread. The McGlynn fed mice look much healthier after 120 days - thereby proven his theory.

1924

JT begins advertising his white bread as healthier and giving talks on bread ingredients.

1934

Because of JT's interest in nutrition, he develops a supplement, named Dietine, that could be mixed with water and it provided all the vitamins and nutrition a person needs. JT established a new company, Dietary Foods Company. He later sold it to the shareholders. Dietine evolved into Optifast is now part of Nestle Health Science Company.

1945

JT's son, Burt, joins the company as they open new retail locations - mostly located in downtown Minneapolis.

1954

JT has an idea to convert an old bus to a bakery on wheels - called Trav'l Bake. He assigns Burt to operate the new venture through the suburbs of south Minneapolis.

1956

JT sells the baking business to Burt. Burt begins to expand to the suburbs to grow the business.

1958

Burt, struggling to grow fast enough accepts an offer to sell the business to a competitor, Emrich Baking. Burt is still able to run the McGlynn portion of the business.

1961

Burt is frustrated working for someone else and accepts an opportunity to open bakery departments in a new discount store named Target. Space was in the grocery side of the new stores. Since he sold the name in 1958, he begins Molly Ann Bakeries, named after his only daughter.

1962

Burt accepts offer from Doug Dayton of Target to sell product on the dry goods side of the Target stores. Sales skyrocket as Target makes plans to open more stores.

1966

Burt's wife Pat suggests that he should put cake decorators in front of the customers in the front of the Target stores. Decorated cakes make a quick climb to a profitable 35% of sales.

1972

The bakeries have regained the old name McGlynn Bakeries and there are more than 35 Target stores have McGlynn departments in 6 states. Burt's son, Mike, joins the business full time.

1973

Unable to keep up with production demands, a new central bakery is opened in Eden Prairie. Cake sales have grown so rapidly that the company begins importing toys from Asia for cake decorating.

1976

Burt's son Dan joins the business full time. Soaring cake sales create a need for a standardized in-store cake book so customers may choose a cake from pictures. The Magic of Cakes® book is a hit with customers. Company sales are about $8 million.

1982

There are over 100 bakery locations. Applebaum's grocery stores are converted to Rainbow Foods, including French bakery cafes run by McGlynn's in two stores. The company begins making the gold standard of butter croissants. The company begins packaging cake decorations in kits, ready to be placed on cakes. Soon afterwards, other bakeries requests the decorations and DecoPac is born.

1984

With sales of frozen croissants growing quickly, an expansion of 32,000 sq. ft. is added to the Eden Prairie plant to increase croissant sales nationally to bakeries and foodservice and A Taste of France is born. The plant is now over 130,000 sq. ft. and company sales are over $22 million.

1988

More that 4 million croissant are selling every week. And a muffin craze is sweeping the nation. It is an easy extension to the business, so muffin production is quickly ramped up. DecoPac, capitalizing on licensed characters and brands has licensing agreements with Disney, Nickelodeon™,Warner Bros., Mattel®, Hasbro®, DreamWorks®, MARVEL®, Lucasfilm® and team logos from the NHL®, NBA, NFL, MLB® and others.

1990

With A Taste of France sales and product introductions growing, a new facility is built in Chanhassen with over 180,000 sq. ft. of production and warehouse. It also serves as the new company headquarters. New production lines are opened for muffins, cookies, Danish and puff pastry products.

1992

A Taste of France, including both Eden Prairie and Chanhassen plants are sold to Pillsbury. The retail baking portion of the Eden Prairie plant and DecoPac both move to Fridley - in separate but nearby facilities. Both business get more room for growth.

1995

Concept 2 Bakers is launched to market artisan bread to bakeries and foodservice nationwide. Production is ramped up in the Fridley bakery to be the largest organic baker of artisan breads in the nation. DecoPac continues to improve efficiencies and speeding up order to delivery times. Retail locations continue to grow, but some out of town bakery locations closed.

1998

Rainbow Foods is failing under new management and bakery sales suffer as well. DecoPac introduces the first Print on Demand cake decorating solution. PhotoCake sales growth takes off. DecoPac purchases Culpitt in the UK and expands into Europe.

1999

Culpitt buys Cake Art, a distributor of cake decorations also in the UK. Retail bakeries fails to negotiate lower lease costs from Rainbow Foods and makes the decision to close all Rainbow locations. New retail emphasis is placed on Holiday Stationstores.

2001

McGlynn Bakeries (along with C2B) and DecoPac split to form two separate companies. Dan and Mike McGlynn run each business, respectively. Both companies remain family owned.

2002

DecoPac lauches Cakes.com a website designed to help consumers find a cake, find a bakery and place orders online.

2003

Holiday Stationstores makes a surprise move to end agreements with McGlynn's and replace it with Krispy Kreme. The decision to close the remaining McGlynn Bakeries locations is made and a systematic shutdown is begun. C2B sales show promise, but not at the rate first predicted.

2004

The last of the bakery locations and production is shuttered. The decision was made to sell Concept 2 Bakers and the Fridley faciliity to Ralcorp Holdings, Inc., a division of Ralston Purina Company. Afterwards, DecoPac became the only remaining McGlynn family owned company.

2005

DecoPac sales continue to climb over 10 percent per year and now have over 35,000 customers. The company was out of space, so McGlynn's and some partners purchased a 335,000 square foot facility in Anoka, MN and DecoPac signed a deal to occupy 200,000 sq. ft. The move also.enabled a major improvement in automated order picking and packing equipment. The move happened in 2006 without missing a single customer order.

2009

Culpitt, Ltd., acquires Sugarfayre, the leading producer of printed fondant in the UK.

2011

DecoPac surpasses 400 employees and sales of $125 million.

2013

DecoPac introduces a web application that serves as a digital cake book.

2015

DecoPac purchases another UK company, The Craft Company - a seller of cake decorating products to at-home decorators. DecoPac purchases Bakery Crafts, one of its biggest competitors, bringing over 150 yeas of combined bakery and cake decorating knowledge to customers across the globe.

2017

After almost 100 years of family owned bakery related business, DecoPac was sold to private equity firm Snow Phipps. Several McGlynn family members remained minority owners in DecoPac. In May, 2021, DecoPac was sold again to Kohlberg & Company, L.L.C.