Hill Biscuits has revealed it will be targeting a wider customer base, including international exports, as a result of securing a £276,000 loan from the Greater Manchester Investment Fund.

The news comes after the biscuit manufacturer, based in Ashton-under-Lyne, revealed the investment would be used to extend its packing facilities. This included the construction of a separate warehouse on-site for this area of the business, which has the capability to hold 700 pallets.

Hill Biscuits said the move would help to free up production space within its main building, while enabling the company to produce a broader range of pack sizes.

Steven Wetherby, managing director at Hill Biscuits, told British Baker: “We are keen to spread our business more, so that we can move into other areas like foodservice, and develop some more export packs which we were previously unable to do. So it is giving us the opportunity to produce different pack sizes for different markets.

“There were previously opportunities that we weren’t able to tap into. We want to now try and provide a firmer foundation, rather than just relying on retailer packs, reaching to a wider customer base.”

Hill Biscuits currently exports its products to parts of the Caribbean, areas of Europe and, most recently, Australia, which started at the back end of 2012 as a result of the financial injection.

“We would not have been able to export to Australia had it not been for this investment,” Wetherby added.

The company currently employs 300 members of staff, but has hired an additional 45 employees as part of the investment.

Looking at the performance of the business in the past 12 months, Wetherby said the company had been very busy and experienced a good year-on-year growth of around 20%.

Hill Biscuits currently produces a range of sweet biscuit products for the retail, wholesale and foodservice markets, including digestive biscuits, ginger nuts, bourbons and custard creams.