Coopland & Son (Scarborough) will rebrand all of its Peters Bakery outlets in the next two to three months.

The move comes as Mark Firmin and Howard Smith of accountancy firm KPMG, joint administrators of Peters Bakery, announced the buyout of the company on Monday.

Cooplands will take charge of the 22 outlets, as well as Peters’ 50,000sq ft factory and headquarters site at Durham’s Dragonville Industrial Estate, transferring a total of 129 store-based staff, and a further 69 employees.

The buyout takes Cooplands’ store count to 131 shops, alongside 11 cafés, currently located in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Teesside. In March, the firm, positioned at number 12 in British Baker’s BB75 list of high street bakery retailers based on store count, operating 126 outlets. It now edges closer to Coffee Republic’s position in the table, which has 138 coffee shop sites within its UK estate.

Paul Coopland, managing director of Coopland & Son (Scarborough), told British Baker: “We will be looking to rebrand the 22 Peters outlets in the next two to three months, which will trade under the Cooplands name. It is an exciting time and there is a lot of hard work to be done, but the buyout will enable the company to continue to expand beyond our existing boundaries.”

He added that the business would also rebrand the Peters Bakery’s retail van business, which sells baked goods to companies and industrial estates, under the Cooplands name. Ten further members of staff within this part of the business have been transferred over to Cooplands as part of the acquisition.

As a result of the deal, 34 Peters’ stores have immediately ceased trading and more than 150 employees have been made redundant.

Mark Firmin, KPMG’s northern head of restructuring and joint administrator, said: “We undertook negotiations with several interested parties and this deal represents the best outcome for both the creditors and the employees of the company. It means that as much of the business as possible will continue to trade under the new ownership of Cooplands, safeguarding more than 200 jobs.”

Cooplands bought out Hull-based Skeltons Bakery from administration five years ago, taking over its factory in Lorraine Street, east Hull, as well as 34 shops. The deal almost doubled the firm’s estate from 43 to 77 shops and positioned it as the UK’s fourth-largest bakery chain at the time.

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