Sales are up by 14% at Sunrise Bakery as the popularity of Caribbean food continues to grow. The West Midlands-based firm, which makes products such as traditional Caribbean hard dough breads, spiced buns, Bulla cakes and an African bread, has just expanded its business with Asda and Tesco.

Celebrating its 45th year in business, the firm also launched a new premium product, Paradise Estates Caribbean Rum Cake, at the recent Rumfest event in London on 15-16 October. "It went down an absolute storm," said MD Errol Drummond, adding it had already attracted the interest of two major retailers.

The company, which began supply locally to businesses in the Black Country, now delivers across the UK, including to almost 300 independents, and has seen sales increase 14% over the past four years.

Drummond told British Baker that the firm had just added another two lines to the five it already supplies Tesco, and had also extended its presence in Asda over the past three months.

He said the bakery had seen growing demand for Caribbean products in the past few years, and believed food programmes and chefs, such as Levi Roots, had been a real influence on the popularity of these types of foods.

Sunrise Bakery supplies own-brand products to 70 Asda stores and 15 Tesco stores.