Ireland's leading speciality bread producer Easibake Foods has opened a new 3,300 metre squared processing facility in Wales.
Easibake, a subsidiary of Evron Foods, began production in May at its new Pontypool-based facility. The site will initially employ around 16 people, but could ultimately provide up to 50 jobs and act as a base for further growth across Britain for the County Armagh company. The project has been supported by the Welsh Development Agency.
Easibake md Morris Evans said the plant was needed to grow the business. “Strategically we felt that to grow our business we needed to be operating across at least two locations,” he explained. “Our new Welsh plant will not only provide important back-up for our core customers but will also ensure we can distribute across Britain more efficiently.”
Evans said the extra capacity would place the company in a strong position to develop value-added products for new and existing customers, with the aim of further penetrating the markets for frozen and chilled speciality breads and bakery goods.
The Pontypool factory will have two automated French bread lines, each capable of producing part-baked French breads from 40g to 460g in size. Phase one will enable 10,000 demi-baguettes an hour to be to be processed with the option to add chilled and frozen garlic breads in four to six months time.
Evron Foods supplies 10 core customers, including Subway, Asda and Waitrose, with speciality chilled and frozen breads and baked goods. It also produces its own Easibake branded range.