Family-owned The Cake Decorating Company and Cake Craft Group have been brought together under a new group holding company name – Create Better Group.
The business, which supplies cake decorating and baking items to the industry as well as home bakers, has also made two appointments to its senior management team. Gary Quinn joins as joint CEO and will run Create Better Group alongside co-owner Daniel White. He has previously held high profile roles in private equity, SMEs and blue-chip businesses.
Claire Astbury, meanwhile, joins the Nottingham-based firm as chief marketing officer. She previously worked for Ideal Shopping Direct where she was head of acquisition and is described as an “experienced digital leader with a passion for data driven marketing”.
The news comes after the business achieved ‘record sales’ with 60% growth seen by The Cake Decorating Company, which sells cake decorating products to professionals and hobbyists in the UK.
The Cake Craft Group, meanwhile, supplies wholesale and trade businesses worldwide and achieved 10% growth in 2020 compared to the previous year. International sales also exceeded £1m for the first time in the company’s 10-year history.
“The creation of Create Better Group was a key strategic decision for us. It brings our successful businesses and brands together under one roof,” said White. “As a growing business, it’s an essential move to ensure we continue to work together seamlessly as one team. We believe that this decision will help us to increase our collective buying power, develop the breadth of our product ranges and ultimately help our retail and wholesale customers to create better, too.”
Further growth is anticipated as Create Better Group has put an ‘ambitious growth strategy’ in place for 2021 with new facilities in the region planned as well as a recruitment drive later in the year.
Gary Quinn, joint CEO of Create Better Group, added: “We’re delighted with the continued growth of the business and I’m thrilled to have joined the group at such an exciting time. We’re looking forward to expanding into our new offices, making further additions to the team and announcing some further major developments in summer 2021 and beyond.”
Orchard Valley Group
The Orchard Valley Foods Group, which includes Orchard Valley Foods, Confection by Design, County Confectionery and Candeco, has also made changes.
All the brands will now come under one umbrella company, simply known as OV.
The Group was developed from the merger of Orchard Valley Foods Ltd and Candeco Confektyr AB in 2017 to create a €40m (£35m) producer of confections, ingredients and decorations for the food manufacturing, foodservice and retail home baking sectors as well as international markets.
Acquisitions of Harrogate-based Confection by Design and County Confectionery in St Ives followed.
Now known as OV, the company employs 255 people worldwide and has a turnover of around €75m (£65m).
OV said the rebrand is part of a strategy to align and streamline business as one united group with shared values based around innovation, simplification, care and collaboration with customers, as well as ensuring that processes and procedures are aligned across the group.
“The rebranding of Orchard Valley Food Group as OV is the next stage in an exciting growth plan,” said Louise Liddiard, marketing manager at OV. “Not only will the new, simplified name remove the complexity associated with having different brands when communicating with customers, but the collective brand beliefs, promise and ways of working that we will all deliver will be a real benefit to customers wherever they are based in the world.”
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