A family-run business is gearing up for the opening of their second bakery with the creation of 20 new jobs in Denbigh in the New Year.
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The ovens on Henllan Bakery’s new cake and biscuit making facility on Denbigh’s Colomendy Industrial Estate will fire up in January in an expansion that has already seen the company take on the new staff.
They are all trained up now and part of a 94-strong workforce as the business continues to grow.
They have just received a helping hand from neighbours Lock Stock Self-Storage who have supplied them with four 20-foot containers to store cardboard cake boxes for their range of new products.
It brings to six the number of containers they have bought from Lock Stock and which they also use to house a maintenance workshop, equipment and parts as well as to store packaging and materials for recycling.
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Henllan Bakery is also coming off an extremely busy time ahead of Christmas with mince pies rolling off the production lines at a rate of 10,000 a day with 50,000 of them exported to the USA.
Their bread and butter remains bread though baps also boomed through a barbecue summer and their customers range from big guns like Tesco, Asda and Morrisons to corner shops and North Wales’s holiday parks.
The new bakery is ready to come on stream and Production Director Tom Moore said: “We have grown massively and we had to make a decision to move and get bigger premises.
“The opening of the new bakery has meant lots of planning and the creation of new jobs and lots of apprenticeships aimed at bringing the next generation of bakers through.
“We have used containers from Lock Stock for a long time now and have bought six in the last 18 months and having Lock Stock on our doorstep been wonderful for us because we can just pick up the phone and they react quickly.
“They have been a massive help for us in expanding and because the first factory was virtually landlocked there was a shortage of space for us there and using containers for storage has been the best option.”
Lock Stock Director Shon Powell said: “We go back a long way with Henllan Bakery – I used to go to scouts in Henllan and the old bakery was next door.
“We’ve known them for years and they’ve been using our containers for ten years and now that we have our own delivery service with our own lorry we can react even more quickly.
“Containers make a lot of sense for businesses because they offer a flexible solution, they aren’t liable for business rates, they’re very secure and because they’re built to withstand long sea voyages in the open air they’re tough and durable.
“We’re also happy to help a local business prosper and expand because Henllan Bakery has been brilliant for the area and for the town.”
The new bakery has been brought on line to take advantage of customer fashions and Tom added: “Cakes and desserts are very much on trend now, we’re also starting to do biscuits here and we’ve invested in this bakery so we can continue to grow.”
Shon Powell added: “Henllan Bakery are always looking to diversify and to react to the market and that’s something that’s worked for us too.
“Lock Stock started because we reacted to a demand and it has grown in response to demand and our own move into container sales came about because customers asked us about buying containers.
“So whether it’s cakes or containers you always have to look at ways you can diversify – you can’t afford to stand still in business.”
Lock Stock now has 18 sites across North and Mid Wales and the Border Counties and also operates a van-hire business, Take Stock, from three hubs at Llandudno, Chester and Rhyl – they also sell fireworks at Chester, Rhyl and Llandudno and on-line.
Their existing sites stretch from Bangor along the North Wales coast at Llandudno and Rhyl, on the Dee at Flint and Chester and inland at Denbigh, Mold, Wrexham and Newtown in Powys, and at Oswestry and Shrewsbury in Shropshire.
