Increased demand for sugar and bakery ingredients has helped boost sales at The Real Good Food Company by 21% to £110m in the six months to 24 June 2011.

The Group, which owns the largest independent non-refining distributor of sugar in Europe (Napier Brown), and manufactures bakery ingredients (Renshaw), and also manufactures sweet bakery products (Haydens) for a range of major retail customers, said in a trading update that group EBITDA rose to £2.67m, up from £600,000 during the same period last year.

At Napier Brown, a new marketing team is set to launch a range of new Whitworths products targeting the growing home baking market, which will be on supermarket shelves this autumn, with further initiatives planned in 2012.

New Renshaw-branded products are also being launched, with Snip and Swirl Icings first to market, and now available in selected retailers, sugar-craft outlets and wholesalers. The full range will be launched at the end of this month, with a progressive roll-out to all major outlets before the year end. Advertising campaigns in both the trade and consumer food press will be launched shortly. Products include a kids’ range of flavoured sugardough and a trade range of fruit-flavoured fondants.

The Group admitted Haydens was having to deal with higher-than-expected commodity costs and this was delaying a factory modernisation programme. However, it said its new distribution facility was now fully operational and already helping drive an improved performance year-on-year.

“Based on the progress we have made over the past six months, I am confident that the Group is on course to meet market expectations for the year,” said Pieter Totte, executive chairman.

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