The Abergavenny Fine Food Co., a UK-based dairy and snacks producer, is simplifying its cheese portfolio with plans to discontinue flavoured and blended cheeses and focus on the value-added portion of the business.
Headquartered in the town of Pontypool in south Wales, where it has a production facility in Blaenavon, the company currently manufactures chilled and frozen dairy products, plant-based appetisers such as mozzarella sticks and cheese-filled Jalapeno poppers, mainly for private-label retail clients in the UK and overseas but also its own branded products.
Abergavenny Fine Food will no longer produce the Y-Fenn, Tintern, Harlech and St. Illtyd lines of flavoured and blended cheeses after December but will continue to manufacture goat’s cheese from its dairy creamery in Abergavenny.
The company’s value-added products include cream cheese filled Jalapeno peppers, breaded Cornish camembert and new additions in the plant-based space such as the vegan mozzarella sticks and Jack Fruit burgers, a company spokesperson confirmed to just-food but declined to provide details on what will happen to the discarded brands pending an announcement.
Multi-national lender HSBC has recently provided Abergavenny Fine Food with a “seven-figure finance package” to support its growth in the value-added area – chilled and frozen dairy, plant-based appetisers and snacking items, and vegan ranges – as the business seeks to achieve sales of GBP50m (US$64.7m) in the next three years, it said in a statement.
The spokesperson confirmed sales for the 2019/20 fiscal year were GBP30.9m.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataAbergavenny Fine Food has also undergone a management change after managing director Melanie Bowman stepped down after 15 years to be replaced by Jason Rees, who previously worked as an adviser at Step Change Ventures in London. A former consultant at Tresimwn, Andrew Lord, has been appointed as chairman. Bowman will take a “back seat executive role”.
Rees said in the statement: “The decision to close this chapter has not been taken lightly, but strategically we must focus on more profitable, scalable products to reinforce our growth and future-proof the business. We are growing our domestic business with our retail and wholesale partners in the UK and our export markets have also increased from 8% in 2017 to 20% this year.”
The spokesperson for the business confirmed Abergavenny Fine Food currently exports to the US, Canada, Australia and Japan, with a target to boost the percentage of overseas sales to 24%.