UK’s largest savoury pastry products manufacturer Addo Food Group has announced its intention to expand into the foodservice sector.
The company, which makes sausage rolls, pies and quiches sold in grocery stores, has created its first range of products for the foodservice industry, produced at its Dorset Foods site.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Addo is working with frozen food distributor Central Foods to build its customer base and will be on the outlook for further opportunities within the catering industry in the coming months.
“Addo Food Group continues to be successful within the grocery market and our extension into the UK foodservice market is a natural progression for a forward-thinking innovative business,” Jon Rose, Addo’s foodservice commercial controller, told just-food, pointing out the channel continues to grow, with more outlets than ever. “Our capabilities and expertise, including gluten free, make foodservice an obvious additional channel to fuel our growth agenda. Our expertise in creating a huge range of branded and own-label savoury pastry products means that our customers will know they are working with a business that can consistently supply a wide-range of high-quality products.
Rose admitted that, as a new player in the channel, the relationship with Central Foods had been “invaluable in helping us identify new ways to make our products available”.
Nottingham-based Addo said it was exploring opportunities within the sector and speaking to a number of hospitality businesses about the products they can develop.
As part of its venture into foodservice, Addo is also developing gluten-free products in response to the demand from caterers for more free-from options.
Central Foods supplies more than 400 lines of products to over 220 independent wholesalers across the country, including schools, hospitals and hotels.
In April, Addo was sold to UK private-equity firm LDC, a subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group, and investment fund Fullbrook Thorpe Investments. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Addo was known as Pork Farms Group until the autumn of 2015. The company changed its name in the wake of its acquisition of Kerry Group’s chilled savoury pastry business. Vision Capital had been its owner since 2007.
