Pastry and dough manufacturer BakeAway is rising to demand for convenience in home baking.
Having started out in 2010 as a family-run business, manufacturing own-label and branded products for retailers, BakeAway was acquired six years later by Paris-based ready-to-bake specialist Cérélia.
In 2020, the new owner helped BakeAway take a significant step along its growth journey through a £30m investment in a shiny new 93,500 sq ft factory located in Centrix Business Park on the outskirts of Corby, Northamptonshire.
BakeAway’s commercial director Doug Hall notes that setting up a factory during the pandemic had been challenging, with Cérélia’s engineers unable to fly into the UK to assist. However, he admitted the lockdown-inspired boom in home baking was a blessing for sales.
“We’ve retained a lot of those consumers that moved to home baking during the lockdown, and our volumes have been very much higher ever since,” says Hall, adding that it has been steadily growing its shelf space within retailers amongst the butter, margarine, and spreads section.
“A lot of categories are growing at a value level right now but aren’t showing true growth of volume in a unit level. We’re seeing unit volume growth coming through in the pastry and dough category of around 6% per annum,” comments Hall.
The current run rate at BakeAway is 20,000 tonnes of pastry a year, equating to around 55 tonnes coming off the production lines every single day.
Off the block
Hall points to a consumer shift away from block pastry, which is seen as more traditional and requires a rolling pin, and towards the convenience of ready roll pastry.
As such, BakeAway operates two production lines for ready roll pastry – one for shortcrust and one for puff pastry – plus a line for block pastry and another for pizza and cookie dough.
“I think pizzas have always been a firm favourite with UK consumers, but we sit in that area between ready-topped pizzas and scratch cooking,” notes Hall, adding that trends in pizza personalisation and pizza ovens at home have led to an uptick in sales.
The company is also well positioned for growth of the cookie dough market.
“There’ll be a lot of TikTok clips out there with people making all sorts of amazing, tasty things with our cookie dough,” asserts Hall. “We think that’s a really expandable category for us as well in the future.”
It’s not all dough, though. There’s also pancakes. BakeAway owns and produces the Abra-ca-Debora brand, which has a range of Dutch-style and buttermilk pancakes. Hall notes the brand is doing “exceedingly well”, recording 40% year-on-year growth and gaining listings with retailers.
While pizza, cookies, and pancakes usually fall within the scope of HFSS, BakeAway is still keen on tapping into the health trend. It offers light ready-roll pastry – with 30% less fat than standard pastry – for retailer’s own label ranges, and earlier this year partnered with sports nutrition brand Myprotein to develop the UK’s first ready-made, branded chilled protein pancake.
The business also has a licenced partnership with Pizza Express to supply branded pizza dough to retailers, something that is currently “working really well for everyone”.
Meanwhile Jus-Rol, a brand so important in the UK ready-roll pastry category that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked its 2021 acquisition by Cérélia, is currently made by BakeAway under a co-manufacturing agreement.
Legal battles have ensued in recent years, with a latest ruling by the Court of Appeal back in April landing in favour of the CMA. BakeAway is seeking to appeal to the Supreme Court, maintaining that the transaction will create a more innovative product market for UK consumers and a more price competitive category.
People power
Marc Garcia was appointed UK operations director at BakeAway in August 2023, having spent two years in the same role at chocolate supplier Barry Callebaut.
Among the things that Garcia says he’s brought with him to BakeAway are an ability to look at the structure of the company and elevate the operations to the next level, as well as a passion for people.
“I like diversity of thoughts,” he comments. “If everyone just does what I say, then it’s quite narrow in opinions. I want my [leadership] team to be empowered, and I want them to look at the development within their own teams.”
Garcia highlights a long-term people strategy at BakeAway that includes a three-year training development plan covering all aspects of the business, and at all levels. Non-native staff members are also offered external lessons in English as a second language, which he says was really positively received.
“That balances the investment in the building and machinery with the people that we really need to drive us forward and strive for success,” he adds.
Forward looking
Additional investment appears likely in the future, with Hall describing Cérélia as an “ambitious organisation that always wants to grow its businesses”.
The BakeAway site has space within its existing footprint to add more production lines and increase its capacity. Looking further ahead, it also owns a similarly sized, adjacent plot of land to expand with another production site next door. A large window currently looks through to this space from the factory, which would simply become an internal door linking the two.
With continued strong demand for ready-roll pastry and dough, as well as growth of other key products like pancakes, BakeAway will expect to maintain an upwards trajectory and move on to even bigger things in the coming years.
No comments yet