Baking Industry Awards 2024: Montana Bakery wins Bakery Manufacturer of the Year

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This category honours the ambitious manufacturers that are pushing the baking sector forward through innovation-driven growth and quality at scale. They must also showcase great service to their customers, clever investments in their people, and admirable responsibility to the environment.

Winner: Montana Bakery

Exceptional product quality, flexibility, speed to market, and a focus on developing the skills of its employees were among the attributes that saw Montana Bakery rise to the top of the manufacturers this year.

The business runs two adjacent units at its site, just a short hop from Heathrow airport, in which it manufacturers an impressive range of premium tier focaccia, flatbreads, pizza bases, and more for discerning customers including several major supermarkets. Although a decent level of automation is provided by modern machinery, over 50% of the products are still finished by hand with toppings such as peppers, olives, and marinated onions. Lashings of garlic butter is also a must.

Montana Bakery has a self-professed ‘can-do attitude’ with the aim to meet any challenge with ‘enthusiasm and a will to deliver’. This positivity and hard work has seen an impressive rise in turnover over the past year, reaching £57m.

Commitment to sustainability was well demonstrated to judges, including its ‘Get right first time’ policy, as well as it continuing search for improvement in efficiency.

Montana’s workforce swells to around 450 staff to cope with seasonal demand for products such as the Garlic Butter Brioche & Camembert Wreath at Christmas. The company has rolled out extensive training programmes, helping to fostering a culture of empowerment, and has unveiled plans to launch the very first training academy of German owner Martin Braun-Gruppe.

“With a very dedicated HR team, they manage to lift the knowledge levels and spirit of their employees, moulding them into a very tight and loyal workforce that drives success of the business,” commented one judge.

Another judge noted that huge expansion plans for an adjacent site could see Montana become a real powerhouse in UK bakery manufacturing.

Finalist: Haywood & Padgett

This family-run firm has grown to become a £35m turnover business with a workforce of 210 people, producing six million units per week out of its Barnsley site. It supplies scones to most major UK retailers and various foodservice clients as well as exporting globally.

Plans are afoot to enter new Asian markets, with some exciting new flavour combinations and snackable sizes of scones are also being worked on by the NPD team. The product range of baked snack brand NibNibs, which Haywood & Padgett too full control of last year, is also currently being redeveloped with new flavours and coatings.

Judges remarked that the production area was “noticeably relaxed” with a high level of cleanliness, with all products of excellent quality. One judge commended the firm for “maintaining the English heritage of scones”, while another said: “You can really feel the family culture permeating throughout the business”.

Finalist: Panificio Italiano

A finalist in the category for the second straight year, this independent wholesale bakery based in Iver, Buckinghamshire makes a wide range of artisan-quality products including focaccia, ciabatta, rolls, and sourdough, which it supplies ambient or frozen to customers in the retail, foodservice, and airline sectors. Many are stone-baked inside a huge thermal oil oven, said to offer 40% better efficiency than standard ovens.

The company has made several investments over the past year, including 425kW of solar panels on the roof, a water cutting system for ciabattas, an additional cooling spiral, and a packing line, while a brand-new ciabatta line is doubling capacity. It has also hired a new NPD manager, begun building a new test kitchen, and launched apprenticeship programmes for junior managers.

The incredibly clean and spacious bakery impressed the judges, who also admired how machinery had been installed to increase production without the need to increase. They found Panificio to demonstrate an “excellent attention to many aspects of product quality” and a key eye for sustainability.

Finalist: Proper Cornish

This Bodmin-based company creates high quality savoury pastries, including Cornish pasties, either own-label for retailers including supermarkets and under its Proper Cornish brand. Its dedicated team of hand-crimpers can produce around 66,000 pasties a day, while its automated line makes sausage rolls, turnovers, and slices.

There are no industrial ovens inside the factory, though, as all products are sent unbaked into spiral freezers and then immediately packaged for distribution. They are then baked from frozen at the destination such as in-store bakeries, cafés or kiosks.

A robotic packing system was introduced last year to meet demand from a major new customer of bacon and cheese turnovers, with the company expecting to achieve around 30% sales growth this year following a record-breaking 2023.

Judges found the business to have “an extremely robust and exciting innovation pathway” and were excited to see what new offerings it would create next. Proper Cornish’s “ability to produce a true regional product on a large commercial scale makes them unique in their field”, commented one judge.