All Latest News articles – Page 624
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News
Costa turns in positive sales
Costa Coffee’s sales were up by 22.1% and 6.7% like-for-like in the 50 weeks to 15 February 2007, parent Whitbread said last week.In a trading update, Alan Parker, chief executive said a rapid expansion was continuing at Costa and sister company Premier Travel Inn. He said: "The food offer has ...
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Finsbury looks to organic expansion
Finsbury Food Group said it planned to expand its organic bread business, as it posted interim results for the six months to 31 December on 30 March.The company, which acquired celebration cakes company Lightbody of Hamilton in February, said it saw continued sales growth across its business, with sales ...
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Paul tests out takeaway format
fPaul UK, the French bakery chain, is trialling a "takeaway" store, near Fenchurch Street in London, while continuing to expand its sit-down café format.Paul’s 16 other sites in London are 1,800sq ft to 2,000sq ft with seating internally and externally. The new 500sq ft format has no internal seating. All ...
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Health watch
Burton’s Foods, baker of Jammie Dodgers and Maryland Cookies, has become the latest supplier to remove hydrogenated vegetable oil from all of its products.The company has pledged that its portfolio of over 100 products will be free from artificial trans fats from now on.Retailers Asda, Boots, Co-op, Marks & ...
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Plimsoll seeks out ’hidden jewels’
According to business analyst Plimsoll Publishing, new technology can predict the success or failure of almost any proposed acquisition in the UK and Nor- thern Ireland.The technology, Valuations, Industry analysis, Business acquisitions (VIBE) draws on a database of information from the age of a firm’s directors to details about ...
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Soreen sale rumour refuted
Inter Link Foods has dismissed press reports that it is to sell its malt loaf business Soreen.Reports last week had suggested that Soreen was being marketed for sale by the cake company, in a move to to reduce its debt. But chairman Jeremy Hamer told British Baker that they ...
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ABF’s bakery profits drop
Associated British Foods (ABF) said profits in its bakery sector were lower than last year, due to a poor performance by Allied Bakeries.Prior to entering the close period for its interim results to 3 March 2007, ABF announced last week in its Pre-Close Period Trading Update that the competitive UK ...
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Order flour with a click of the mouse on ADM website
Flour-buyers can order online in a new ADM Milling initiative which it claims is an industry first.The UK’s largest independent flour miller has set up [http://www.4flour.co.uk] which lets customers order and manage their flour and bakery ingredients online.Retail craft bakers and bakery food manufacturers can now access their business account ...
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Cake deal agreed
Finsbury Food Group’s £37.5m takeover of celebration cake company the Lightbody Group has been agreed by the Finsbury board and shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting.As reported in British Baker (see 2 February, pg 4), Finsbury claims the deal will make it the leading player in the UK’s celebration ...
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Plimsoll: all change for top bakery jobs
A wave of new appointments at senior management level among bakery companies in the UK is set to prompt a radical change in their behaviour, says Plimsoll.A new report from the industry analyst says there have been 722 new appointments at director level among the top 980 companies in the ...
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Apprenticeship consultation
Improve, the sector skills council for food and drink, has started consultation with employers on plans for a new framework for apprenticeship programmes."This will be a crucial reform," said Jack Matthews, Improve’s chief executive, who added that completed apprenticeships in food and drink manufacturing subjects at Level 2 have more ...
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Steven Birrell, executive secretary, the Association of Bakery Ingredient Manufacturers
Members of the Association of Bakery Ingredient Manufacturers (ABIM) devote considerable resources to developing product specification documents for customers to help them comply with legislation, certification schemes and codes of practice, as well as answering any questions they might have.Communicating product specification data to customers, using different formats, is a ...
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UK bagel sales help boost Maple Leaf’s performance
Canadian company Maple Leaf Foods said last week that its UK bakery acquisitions contributed to a 7% rise in sales in its bakery group in the fourth quarter of 2006.The UK bakery business, best known for the New York Bagel Co brand, saw excellent performance, it said, benefiting from ...
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Briefs
n Nearly 80% of 17,000 mothers who took part in an FSA online survey supported the Traffic Light Labelling scheme over the rival Guideline Daily Amount labelling scheme preferred by some retailers and manufacturers.n Denver Cottage Bakery of Ilkeston in Derbyshire has been fined more than £1,800 after mouse droppings ...
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Health to the fore at BSB Conference
Health is set to be a hot topic at the British Society of Baking’s Spring Conference. Two of the keynote speeches at the event will be ’Reducing salt in cakes and biscuits’ and ’Health and well-being’, delivered, respectively, by Dinnie Jordan and Laetitia Rocha.Jordan runs Kudos Blends, which formulates raising ...
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Ferrari’s finds buyer
A corporate recovery firm has saved 500 jobs at Ferrari’s Bakery after making an as set purchase of the Welsh business on February 27.The 60-shop bakery with central factory, based in Hirwaun, Aberdare (number 15 in British Baker’s top 50 bakery retailers list) went into administration on December 18.Cameron Gunn ...
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EU law may make health claims more difficult
New EU health claims legislation may mean that bakers can no longer make on-pack health claims for fortified breads, such as those fortified with omega-3.The regulation (EC 1924/2006), set to be ratified in the summer and then phased in, covers nutrition and health claims made on foods. It will mean ...
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Jobs to go as pizza line closes
Schwan’s Consumer Brands is closing a production line at its plant in Leyland with the loss of 30 pizza bakery jobs.Orders at the Leyland plant, which makes the Chicago Town pizza range, have dropped since Christmas while new business has evolved at its main production site in Germany. It is ...
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Commodities tracker
Sugar prices are expected to fall further in 2007, according to the International Sugar Organization’s monthly market report on the world sugar market. However, it said sugar commodities in January were in line with expectations.The report said that world raw sugar prices were expected to continue to fall because of ...