Newry bakery hits sweet spot as sales treble and keep on rising

A Newry-based bakery has trebled its sales in the past twelve months to exceed the £1.5million mark, and it expects to double its sales again this year.

Pictured at Sweet Things Badass Bakery in Newry is Steve Fogo, General Manager. Photo: William Cherry, Press Eye.

Sweet Things bakery, which was acquired by leading ‘food-to-go’ manufacturer, Newry-based Around Noon in 2016, has grown its workforce from two to 13 people in the past year and is currently recruiting for a further two roles – an innovation baker and a bakery supervisor.

An artisan producer specialising in ‘scratch baking’ of bespoke, innovative, irreverent and luxurious products, it supplies a number of well-known high street retailers and independent stores in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Originally established in 2009 by Ciara Byrne, now company Commercial Director, and her partner, Ian Fowler, it began selling at farmers’ markets before being spotted and eventually bought by Around Noon CEO Gareth Chambers.

Now based at Around Noon’s state-of-the-art Newry headquarters in a dedicated bakery, Sweet Things supplies many of Around Noon’s existing customers, as well as other businesses.

Speaking to Newry Times, Gareth Chambers, CEO of Around Noon, said, “We are delighted with the rapid growth that Sweet Things has enjoyed. After acquiring the business, we invested significantly in branding and marketing, as well as in new premises for the businesses.

“We’ve positioned it as a bakery that offers a bit of a ‘rock and roll’ take on bakery, and we did things like add the strapline ‘bad-*** bakery’.”

“It has been a strategic acquisition for us that really complements our existing offering. Our customers spend in excess of £10million annually on bakery items, so there is real demand for the kind of products that we offer through Sweet Things.

He added, “Our customers can now centralise their purchasing of food-to-go and bakery items, confident they’re receiving baked goods to the same exceptional standards they’re accustomed to at Around Noon.”

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Posted by Newry Times News on May 17 2018. Filed under Business, Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry