Welsh manufacturer Jones Village Bakery has its new £20m roll production line up and running at its main site on Wrexham Industrial Estate.
Installation of the giant piece of equipment, which helps double the company’s roll-making capacity, was carried out over the past 14 months and recently completed two days ahead of schedule. It is expected to create 60 new jobs by next summer.
First revealed when the business was acquired by Menissez Bakery Group last year, the new roll line forms part of a £47m investment programme to ramp up production. This includes plans to convert and extend a storage facility – located on the same Park Road site in Coedpoeth where its original bakery was destroyed by fire in 2019 – into a new bakery.
“The new roll production line is a fantastic investment that will enable us to satisfy the growing appetite for our products,” commented Jones Village Bakery CEO Simon Thorpe. “It’s the same old story. If you make fantastic products and provide excellent customer service, it will invariably create demand.”
Thorpe expressed how he was “very proud of the team who have worked like trojans” to build the new line in front of a tight schedule. “The equipment is the very best, most modern that’s available on the market and has come from the Netherlands,” he said, adding “we chose it because it makes the very best product and it’s been configured in a way that is bespoke to our particular needs.”
The project was masterminded by group head of engineering Kris Green, who noted that the new line mimics the skills of craft bakers. “That’s the key because our primary focus is always the quality of the product which drives demand,” he asserted.
“It speaks for itself in terms of the growth we have seen,” added Green. “The upshot is that it’s attracting more highly skilled people and we’re investing in that internally.”
Group head of operations Andy Beckett also played a key role in the successful installation. His rise through the ranks in the baking industry is described as meteoric, having starting out as a cleaner at a large bakery company in the Northwest where he later became part of the management team.
After spells working at senior levels for a major glass manufacturer and a global brewery firm, Beckett returned to his first love as a trained baker at Jones Village Bakery two years ago. He regarded the completion of the new roll line ahead of deadline as his proudest career moment so far.
“Once you’re in bakery, it becomes a passion so I was thrilled to join the Village Bakery which continues to enjoy spectacular growth,” expressed Beckett. “It’s a fantastic place. There’s lots of investment and lots of opportunities for anybody who’s prepared to work hard. We’re really going places and I feel I am now part of something very special, and the new production line enables us to serve the customer in different ways.”
Jones Village Bakery currently employs more than 900 staff working across four different sites, including its 140,000 sq ft ‘super bakery’ on Ash Road that produces rolls, sourdough bread, and baguettes, as well as housing its head office, development bakery, and baking academy. It also operates a 70,000 sq ft dedicated gluten-free bakery on an adjacent plot; a 50,000 sq ft site across the Wrexham Industrial Estate on Abenbury Way making pancakes, scones, bagels, burger buns, and dough balls; and a 45,000 sq ft bakery in Minera – on the outskirts of Coedpoeth and near its original bakery – where it creates bread, rolls, pancakes, blinis, pikelets, Welshcakes, and savoury pastries.
In September the company announced a pledge to pay school leavers £12.60 an hour – more than £5 above the National Minimum Wage for their age.
No comments yet