Cake and desserts manufacturer Ministry of Cake has smashed its targets one year after becoming independent as it achieves 25% growth year-on-year. 

Managing director Chris Ormrod sold the Taunton-based business to convenience food producer Greencore in 2008 and last year bought it back, before opening a second site named Ministry of Pudding in Torquay in October.

He told British Baker the business was in 25% growth year-on-year.

“I think we will see similar growth this year,” he said. “We are looking at new contracts and have [recently] won a new contract.

“I think we will be nearer £30m this year and mid-30s next year - we had expected to be closer to £25m this year. We thought that, over a four-year period, we’d get to £30m – we didn’t expect it to happen in one.”

The business now employs around 285 people, which has risen from 220 a year ago.

Market is recovering

Ormrod explained the company’s success: “We have good NPD, a good commercial team and strong customers. I think the market is coming back up and there are more people eating out. We are seeing some quite interesting growth in key customer areas, such as coffee shops. We took a big decision a year ago to invest heavily in NPD – probably more than the industry average – and that is showing now.”

The business has also done more in Europe than before and is still considering the viability of exporting or investing in a base overseas. It regularly gets business enquiries from Europe, with customers coming from countries including Russia, Spain, France and the Netherlands.

“The worry is that we might end up growing too fast and I want to make sure we grow at the speed we can manage.

“We are actively looking at other businesses we might want to acquire going forward. There are lots of small bakery businesses that are at the stage where they are not going to grow any further, which we might be able to help them with.”

Ministry of Cake and Ministry of Pudding have several major customers and covers most of the major chains in the UK.