Roberts Bakery is creating jobs at its UK site following an investment by billionaire owner Ranjit Singh Boparan.
A £500,000 ($664,677) infusion channelled via the entrepreneur's Boparan Private Office (BPO) investment vehicle into the Little Treats Bakery unit will fund a new production line for chocolate and “high-protein” clusters.
The move will expand the Winsford site’s capabilities beyond its core biscuit division, supporting its rebound from a destructive fire in 2023 and adding around 50 new roles.
The company is currently hiring for the new positions covering engineering, operations, and production.
James Rostron, the site director at Little Treats Bakery, said: “The Little Treats biscuit operation is already an impressive business, baking and decorating around 100 million biscuits a year. Adding chocolate and protein clusters gives us another platform for growth and opens up opportunities with new products, customers and markets.”
Boparan secured ownership of Roberts Bakery through BPO last year after helping it avert administration.
BPO was also involved in the transaction for the Welsh business, Brace’s Bakery, in June.
The billionaire also controls poultry processor 2 Sisters Food Group, which expanded in February by purchasing German peer Heidemark. Headquartered in Ahlhorn, Lower Saxony, turkey and chicken processor Heidemark was integrated into BPO-owned Storteboom Food Group.
Earlier this month, 2 Sisters announced plans to deploy £100m across Bernard Matthews, placing its primary processing hub in Halesworth, Suffolk, at the “forefront of the investment”.
The capital expenditure comes alongside workforce reductions elsewhere across Boparan's holdings.
In August, 2 Sisters lined up job cuts as part of a restructuring exercise at its ready-meals facility in Rogerstone, Newport. At the time, a spokesperson for the poultry supplier told Just Food that the restructuring would impact “around 5% of the workforce,” translating to 80 redundancies.
