Sara Lee wants more meat

Sara Lee is trading in her bag of flour for a bottle of barbecue sauce.

The company — once known for its homely breads and microwaveable cheesecakes — announced today that it is changing its name to Hillshire Brands Co., part of a larger move toward its Hillshire Farms brand of hotdogs, sausages and packaged meats.

Sara Lee is also spinning off a coffee and tea company called D.E. Master Blenders 1753, which takes the cake as the worst corporate name change of 2012 thus far.

In general though, something has been off in Sara Lee’s kitchen for a long time now. The company lost its cookies when it sold all of its North American baking facilities to Bimbo in 2010, just a year after selling its household and body care business to Unilever.

So is the Hillshire move part of a larger recipe for success, or is it just half-baked? Only one thing’s for certain: they might sell meat instead of muffins now, but Sara Lee will always be about the dough.

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