Challenger brand Good Guys Bakehouse has raised £550k to fuel retail growth for its biscuit melts range.
Aimed at bringing new shoppers to the savoury biscuits aisle and driving incremental category growth, the business rolled out its range of wafer-based products into Sainsbury’s and Ocado in January 2023. At around half the fat of regular savoury biscuits, according to Good Guys Bakehouse, they currently come in two flavours – Cheddar and Peppered – and are baked with real ingredients and palm oil free.
The firm noted its new funding would be used on ramping up marketing to drive trial and to support new listings. Expanding the team will also be central to business growth, as well as investment in new product development, it added.
“Over the past year, we have successfully disrupted an ageing savoury biscuits category, securing major listings with Sainsbury’s and Ocado and attracting younger, health-conscious shoppers to the aisle,” commented founder Steve Monk, the former general manager of United Biscuits which is now part of Pladis.
“There’s a clear consumer appetite for tastier and healthier savoury snack biscuits, baked with more cheese than the leading cheese biscuits brand but with only five calories per biscuit. Now, with a successful investment round complete, we are in a strong position to scale up our grocery presence in the UK, driving distribution, and opening up new listings,” Monk added.
“As a brand, we have a unique opportunity to reinvigorate the savoury biscuits category with a new and exciting product proposition, and with the backing of high calibre industry investors, we are perfectly poised to do this.”
The £550k raise was driven by a trio of heavyweight FMCG angel investors, who are snack category experts with a wealth of experience in scaling up fast-growth brands. They include Nick Bunker, the non-executive chair of Spar Retail UK and former MD of Pladis UK and KP Snacks; David Bell, the chair of Hackney Gelato and ex-vice president of sales at Mars UK; and Tom Carroll, the ex-COO of Graze.
Bunker is to join Good Guys as a non-executive director. “Over the course of my career I’ve been involved with a number of brands that have demonstrated genuine potential to go the distance. Good Guys is one of them,” he expressed.
“This raise is a significant milestone in the brand’s mission to shake up the savoury biscuits category, and with Steve at the helm, we are on course to make Good Guys Bakehouse a household name in the UK and beyond.”
Other bakery brands have also attracted substantial investment sums this year to support expansion into new markets and channels, and boost manufacturing capabilities. Gluten-free snacking brand Doughlicious raised a cool £3.5m, plant-based cake and egg alternative Oggs exceeded its £450k crowdfunding target, and healthier doughnut specialist Urban Legend amassed a healthy £3m in its latest investment round.
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