Sweet tidings for biscuit makers
8 Jun 2016
Yildiz Holding, the owner of United Biscuits, has announced plans to consolidate its global confectionery businesses, and ‘free-from’ biscuit maker Northumbrian Fine Foods (NFF) is set to sink £1.2m into baking production.
Turkish manufacturer Yildiz bought United Biscuits for £2bn two years ago, and its newly created Pladis unit will include the McVitie brand, premium chocolate brand Godiva, and Ulker, which is a popular biscuits and confectionery brand in Turkey and the Middle East.
With a combined annual revenue of $US5.2bn (£3.6bn), the company said the unit would help to position it as “a global leader in biscuits and confectionery”. All product brands will retain their individual identities but companies will fall into the Pladis brand.
“We are bringing together some of the world’s best loved brands and combining their 350 years of experience to form a new family company,” said Murat Ulker, chairman of Yildiz Holding.
With 36 factories in 13 countries, Pladis will employ 26,000 people. The company said it would operate on a regional basis, with each region responsible for the manufacturing and commercial activities of the full brand portfolio.
Cem Karakas, chief executive of Pladis, said creation of the new unit would boost innovation around its products and enable more brand synergies.
“We have significant growth ambitions for Pladis with the aim to outperform the category standard year-on-year,” he said.
“This is supported by our capital position and the strength of our manufacturing as one of only two companies in the world that produce such a broad range of biscuits and confectionery.”
The company said the new Pladis unit would be publically listed on the London Stock Exchange within the next four years.
Free-from boom
In a separate announcement, UK gluten-free biscuit manufacturer Northumbrian Fine Foods (NFF) has announced plans to invest £1.2m in new baking production facilities, creating around 40 new jobs at its Gateshead facility.
It said the investment had resulted from ‘soaring’ demand for biscuits in the ‘free from’ sector that has seen the company’s turnover increase over the last five years by 80%.
The new baking oven is expected to increase production capacity at NFF by 40%, and “will play a key role in meeting current demand and also ensure that we can continue to grow the business significantly over the coming years”, the company said.
