Farmhouse Fare, the premium pudding company, has seen wide-ranging changes over the last year, not least of which was its acquisition, in October, by Daniels Chilled Foods, owner of the Covent Garden Soup brand. It's no surprise the company, which started off in founder Helen Colley's kitchen, was a target.
It has grown significantly since we first wrote about it a year ago. Then it had a turnover of £5.6m. Next year it will hit £8m. Last year it was using 2.5 tonnes of butter a week to make its puddings: now it gets through 15 tonnes.
Roberta Herd, marketing executive, says: "We can produce 60,000 puddings a day now - over a quarter of a million a week - and we're still not at full capacity! With a new purpose-built bread-and-butter pudding production area, we now have more space for more staff to create more delicious puddings."
That new production area is at the firm's new 33,000sq ft production facility in Clitheroe, Lancashire. The extra space is needed to supply Farmhouse Fare's growing list of stockists. Asda, Booths, Budgens, Costco, Makro, Sainsbury's, Selfridges, Tesco and Waitrose, among others, stock its products.
The company is hot on its NPD - in the last year alone it nearly doubled the number of brand hot puddings, brand chilled desserts, own-label products and bakery lines, including handmade scones, it offers - to 80. Now it will look into adding organic lines, having recently been awarded a Soil Association accreditation. There are also plans to capitalise on the trend for healthy indulgence products with puddings containing fruits, nuts and seeds.
Single portions have also been introduced. A new 'dinkie' range - individual portions, ready to eat out of a microwave - is already gaining fans.
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