The new owner of the former Best Bakeries business in South Wales has pledged to "bulldoze" the current site in Hirwaun, as part of plans to modernise the business. Healthier products and expanding business within Wales are also priorities for Megans Bakery, which has bought the business from administrators Grant Thornton.

Megans has three directors - former Best Bakeries’ bakery manager Steve Fogo, plus John and Lee McCardle, who also run Ezefill Sandwich Fillings. Fogo said Megans will move ahead quickly with modernisation plans for the business, which will mean moving to a new site in the future. "Everybody talks about TLC, but we’d actually like to bulldoze the site at some stage and and move to a nearby purpose-built site," he told British Baker.

Megans has agreed a sole- supplier deal with Ferrari’s shops new owner ICD Wales, but will also look to secure more supply contracts within Wales, particularly for bake-and-take.

It also has plans to consolidate the number of lines produced at the bakery, as well as introducing new products. "We will use more natural ingredients and less fat and salt in our pasties," Fogo said.

Staff morale - which had taken a battering after a swathe of redundancies - is high, Fogo added. "They can see the improvements we’re making to their working conditions and rates of pay and we want to continue building on that, as we’re only as good as our staff."

l One of the Ferrari’s shops not acquired by ICD Wales has been bought by its previous manager. Wendy Williams and her partner Steve bought the lease for the Ebbw Vale store and have renamed it Steve’s Savouries.

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=== In Short ===

== FDF addresses diet ==

The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has teamed up with Business in the Community (BITC) to tackle poor dietary habits of UK workers. Research suggests the problem contributes to the loss of at least 97 million working days per year. The FDF and BITC have developed the Healthy Eating Toolkit as a guide for all employers looking to promote healthy eating in the workplace.

== Dawn guide ==

Dawn Foods is launching an ingredients guide, providing full information about the firm’s speciality mixes and bases, cake concentrates, doughnuts, and muffin bases and concentrates. It will also include information about the full Baker’s Select range of mixes and bases, as well as Dawn Food’s range of icings, glazes, glossies and fruit fillings.

== Chocs away ==

Unifine Food & Bake Ingredients has created a Chocolate Mailing List for buyers, enabling access to recipes using chocolate, and information about upcoming offers and new products from the company. The list has been created for bakers and caterers, and offers technical support from conception to the finished product.

== Point-of-sale help ==

Zeelandia UK has launched a service to help bakers create their own point-of-sale materials. Accessible at [http://www.zeelandia.co.uk], it allows bakers to choose from a gallery of high-quality poster images, with a clear field to type in a headline. The electronic draft is transmitted to Zeelandia’s ad agency, which processes the order and dispatches finished posters back to the baker within eight days. Every participating baker will receive a free bag of Zeelandia’s Exakt Soft concentrate.

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