News: Maple Leaf secures dough for Rotherham bakery expansion

Rotherham is set to be home to the largest bagel factory in Europe and one of the largest in the world after the New York Bakery Co announced major UK expansion plans.

The UK's leading bagel brand has been backed by an £11.5m infrastructural investment and £3m communications spend from owners, Maple Leaf Bakery UK Ltd.

The significant capital investment will extend the existing Swinton factory, increasing capacity at the state of the art bakery and securing jobs in Rotherham for the long term. When complete it will be the largest bagel factory in Europe and one of the largest globally.


Parent company, Maple Leaf Foods in Canada, supported the investment in response to the unprecedented success of the 2011 New York Bakery Co bagel relaunch - which has seen sales increase by 66 per cent with expected strong growth still to come.

Research by market experts, Nielsen, showed that the relaunch in January has added over £8m in incremental sales to the "Morning Goods" category and that the company has been a driving force behind the rise in the bagel category that is now worth £41.7m, up by 34 per cent since last year.

This year, New York Bakery Co has sold over 110 million bagels and expects to lead the continued growth in the bagel market as a whole, with ambitious targets to double UK household penetration in the next five years.

Simon Foster, VP Marketing of Maple Leaf Bakery UK, said: "Our strong performance is the product of the market's growing demand for bagels, the quality and authenticity of our product and our carefully planned re-launch earlier this year. We are excited about increasing our sales in the UK market and are confident in our expansion plans.

"The significant backing by Maple Leaf Foods will enable us to move forward with our ambitious expansion plans in the next five to ten years. As a result we can now increase our capacity at our Rotherham site to meet growing consumer demand and support our growth aspirations as the market leader in specialty bagels."

Maple Leaf employs approximately 1,200 people in the United Kingdom and their growing Rotherham facility has an estimated production capacity of 70,000 bagels every hour. The company has expanded the Swinton Meadows site three times, the previous investment was in 2008 with £4m to expand its frozen bagel capacity.

New York Bakery Co website

Images: newyorkbakery.co.uk