Baker invests £3m in cookie production line at Wirral factory

Wirral-based Baker & Baker has invested almost £3m into one of the American Bakery-style cookie lines at its headquarters in Bromborough, Wirral.

The investment at the bakery, which employs 550 people at its site on Stadium Road, totals almost £2.9m and has been made over a number of months to increase capacity and introduce new machinery to improve the quality and output of the line.

In addition to the new machinery, new workspaces, including washrooms and sieving and de-boxing areas have also been created on the factory floor.

At the end of January, two bulk silos were installed to complement the existing units on site, which contain bulk ingredients such as sugar and flour.

The investment will also see an upskilling of existing site teams to operate the new equipment, and eight full-time jobs have been created to manage the additional capacity.

Installation on the factory floor began in February and was completed in April.

Baker & Baker says it is a market leader in the American Sweet Bakery cookies category in the UK, serving customers throughout the retail, food service and wholesale channels. The investment signifies the business’s continual commitment to invest in its manufacturing operations to deliver a varied range of flavours and concepts with exceptional quality, it added.

John Lindsay, CEO, said: “We have extensive capabilities in manufacturing cookies across a variety of flavours and formats, and we continue to see strong demand from customers in the UK and Europe for both our own-brand and licensed cookies.

“This investment was necessary to ensure we have the requisite capacity to service customers both now and in the future, whilst maintaining the quality of product that our consumers expect.”

Baker & Baker supplies a range of doughnuts, muffins, brownies, cookies and cakes to customers in the retail, food service, wholesale and artisan bakery sectors.

The business employs around 1,350 people in the UK across four sites.