Bakery ingredients specialist British Bakels will pump £700,000 into its Bicester, Oxford, manufacturing headquarters in a bid to boost the site’s efficiencies and its potential to grow sales.
A new goods-out warehouse will be built in two phases. The first phase, to build a permanent foundation and a temporary structure, cost £150,000 and has been completed.
A permanent structure, costing £550,000, will be built in the second phase and is expected to be completed by the end of the year, said Greg Woodhead, product development manager at British Bakels.
Grow sales
“The idea behind this latest expansion is to increase our product storage capacity and remove a constraint [for the company] to grow its sales,” Woodhead told Food Ingredients, Health & Nutrition.
“It will improve product flow through the factory and also improve the flow of lorry traffic both around our own site, but also onto the entry and exit roads surrounding it.”
British Bakels, which supplies bakery ingredients including bread and cake mixes to the plant, in-store and craft bakery sectors, has grown its turnover substantially to £40M in the past five years. Turnover is expected to rise by a further £10M within the next three years, said Woodhead.
Healthy growth
The healthy growth was, in part, down to the firm’s focus on specific bakery sectors, including plant bread, industrial confectionery, wholesale, foodservice and export, he added.
Further growth will come from a focus on current and emerging trends in the bakery sector, including sugar, salt and fat reduction, free-from and a rise in convenience products.
The latest round of investment follows a £2M plan from 2012 to 2014 to increase the site's output with new production lines.
A further £500,000 was also invested in British Bakels’ recently completed baking centre, which the company uses to develop new products with clients, including the major multiples.