Big Bite Baits Acquired by GSM Outdoors

[Glenn]

https://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_123/gsm-big-bite-baits-7923.html

 

The same company that bought Yamamoto Baits and Bill Lewis Lures has now acquired Big Bite Baits and its parent company D&J Plastics.

[fin]

Goodbye to another reasonably priced bait manufacturer. ☹️

[MN Fisher]

At this rate it's gonna be 4 companies holding all the baits/lures

GSM

Do Outdoors

Pure Fishing

Viellard Migeon et Compagnie. (VMC)

[Spankey]

Quality and options is what will take a big nose dive. It happened to Bomber, Rebel, Heddon and Bandit and more. Long time favorites. But 6th Sense, SPRO, Googan and the rest jump on the opportunity. 

[Glenn]

Bomber, Rebel, Heddon, Cotton Cordell, and Bandit are all owned by Pradco, parent company of Yum and Booyah.

[MN Fisher]

32 minutes ago, Spankey said:

SPRO,

Spro was set up and is still owned by Gamakatsu.

https://spro.eu/en/about-spro/

[Hook2Jaw]

That's worrisome.  I hope the price remains unaffected and the quality stays the same or becomes better.  I have my doubts both of those hopes will happen.  The Kamikaze Swimon, Fighting Frog, and Cane Thumpers are some of my favorite baits.

[Skunkmaster-k]

What does this mean for the consumer? Inquiring minds want to know. 

[Fishingmickey]

Skunk,

     I imagine you will see price go up (maybe slowly) and quality go down as the accounts and new management team decide how they can make the company more profitable.

FM

[bowhunter63]

War Eagle went down hill after there by out . Monopoly’s are not good 

[casts_by_fly]

45 minutes ago, Skunkmaster-k said:

What does this mean for the consumer? Inquiring minds want to know. 

 

In any acquisition you have to think about why the acquiring company bought them in the first place.  There are many possible reasons.  Maybe BBB was underrepresented in the market and lacked the ability for greater distribution.  Maybe BBB was low profit and GSM thinks they can improve it.  Maybe GSM saw an opportunity to get into an area they didn't have before (though maybe unlikely since they bought Yamamoto).  All will be options as to why they bought BBB and any one can inform what might come next.

 

Looking at GSMs brands, they have done a mixture of buying up old classics that maybe weren't at the height of their market but have value, volume and/or distribution (truglo, NAP, Ameristep, birchwood casey), up and coming hot brands that maybe people don't know about yet (i.e. not widely distributed like Halo optics, Apex gear), and opportunity areas on the fringes of their core business (skull hooker, viking solutions, zero trace).  From a size perspective, they can now offer competitive packages to retailers that fill a lot of needs.  if you think about the buyer for Academy or another box store, they can fill their shelves 90% by dealing with maybe 4-5 suppliers.  There is a lot of merit in that as the retailer as you simplify your supply chain.  As the supplier, you need to be able to offer solutions to your buyers.  

 

My suspicion in this case is that GSM had an opportunity to buy with the idea of increasing distribution.  Look what they did with Yamamoto and walmart.  Cut down the pack size to better fit walmart customers, special packaging to differentiate it, increased distribution to more stores and more variants.  If I look at walmart.com for BBB available in store, I see a negligible amount (10 SKUs and none of the good stuff).  There's a big opportunity there.

[volzfan59]

30 minutes ago, bowhunter63 said:

War Eagle went down hill after there by out . Monopoly’s are not good 

I agree with you. As much as I hate to say it, pretty much anything that Pradco touches turns to crap. I used to be a huge Bandit fan, not so much anymore. Used to be great straight out of the package. Now you have to buy six lures in hopes of getting two the run straight. Hook quality is lacking too.

[KP Duty]

I can't knock a small company for selling....entrepreneur's feel like they can pocket the cash and start another company.  Gary Loomis did this ?️

[TOXIC]

Well, Glenn got the scoop on me for this one.   Don’t forget GSM also owns Steel Shad and Buckeye Lures.  I find it a little odd they they would venture into another plastics line when they already own Yamamoto.  I’ll put my ear to the wall and see what I can find out.  If I had to speculate maybe they see the option of 2 tier priced plastics.  They’re moving awfully fast and furious in the marketplace.  

[casts_by_fly]

14 minutes ago, TOXIC said:

Well, Glenn got the scoop on me for this one.   Don’t forget GSM also owns Steel Shad.  I find it a little odd they they would venture into another plastics line when they already own Yamamoto.  I’ll put my ear to the wall and see what I can find out.  If I had to speculate maybe they see the option of 2 tier priced plastics.  They’re moving awfully fast and furious in the marketplace.  

 

 

This was my thinking as well.  Not that BBB plastics are 'cheap' but Yamamoto is certainly considered expensive.  Look at their other categories and they have a high and low price offering.  Truglo/apex, ameristep/muddy, Big Game/Hawk, etc.  Tailored offerings for different retailers.  

[j bab]

1 hour ago, casts_by_fly said:

why the acquiring company bought them in the first place

Keep in mind they also bought D&J Plastics, one of the largest soft plastics manufacturers in the US as part of this deal

[casts_by_fly]

16 minutes ago, j bab said:

Keep in mind they also bought D&J Plastics, one of the largest soft plastics manufacturers in the US as part of this deal

 

that makes a lot of sense and I didn't pick up on that.  Expanded manufacturing footprint to allow greater volume and flexiblity.  Given the blurb on D&J website about contract manufacturing capabilities and small batch abilities, that implies to me that they have some production lines on the smaller side.  That pairs well with a very large lineup of colors where you need faster changeovers and smaller minimum batch sizes.  If only they had another plastics brand that had a HUGE range of colors they needed to maintain...

[MN Fisher]

28 minutes ago, j bab said:

Keep in mind they also bought D&J Plastics, one of the largest soft plastics manufacturers in the US as part of this deal

Big Bites was the house brand of D&J - when they bought D&J, Big Bites got dragged along..

[fin]

Quote

Our History

 

We have over 45 years of experience in the soft plastic lure manufacturing business. Our founder, Dennis Montgomery, began in 1976 when he was hired by Tom and Don Mann at one of the first plastic injection molding companies in the fishing industry. In 1997, Dennis and his wife, Joyce, started D&J Plastics in a small building with only 3 employees and 2 customers. We now work for over 400 brands in 16 countries, ranging from your local mom and pop shop to national brands and major retailers.

We currently have two facilities that allow us the ability to manufacture a wide range of products to meet customer needs. Our primary operation located in Georgia was recently expanded, bringing it to over 65,000 square feet. Our second facility, which is located in Guatemala, is over 50,000 square feet and offers a differentiated range of production services allowing us a strong combination of machine and hand labor manufacturing. Both facilities are ethically run to all safety and environmental regulations.

 

[BrianMDTX]

[Darth-Baiter]

i would love to have a small company and have a big company write me a check..

 

congrats to BigBites.  i have a few bags of something from them, but they dont really fly in my radar range.  

[Choporoz]

Seems like one of our members was hired by BBB years ago....a graphic designer, maybe? 

[Spankey]

Where is Mann’s Baits these days? They are down to nothing. How can such a big name settle for that. 

[BrianMDTX]

Good question. As I love their Jelly Worms. Such a great bait. 

[fin]

29 minutes ago, Choporoz said:

Seems like one of our members was hired by BBB years ago....a graphic designer, maybe? 

 

I think one of the people that has already replied in this thread works for them, or used to work for them, or was connected in some way. He helped me with an order a long time ago. I don't want to call him out for privacy.