Burts Potato Chips’ ambition of being the leading UK-owned premium snacking company over the next five years is one step closer. The company has purchased Leicester-based Savoury & Sweet. The acquisition is the first made by Burts since its foundation in 1997. It will diversify its product portfolio to include a wider range of healthy snacking products as well as popcorn.
Savoury & Sweet is one of the fastest growing players in the popcorn and healthy snacking sector, exclusively making products for UK household-name brands and own-label ranges for leading retailers.
“The Burts business has grown significantly over the last five years, from £11.4 million in 2013 to an anticipated £37 million (post-acquisition) for 2017,” Burts’ MD David Nairn told PV. “Whilst impressive, our ambition is to drive the business to over £100 million in the next five years to become the UK’s biggest player within premium snacking. While organic growth of our existing 168 person production facility in Plymouth is a big part of this – anticipated to reach £70 million – acquisitions of like-minded and complementary businesses will help us accelerate our expansion.”
Burts is privately and proudly British-owned. In the last five years, the company has invested over £12m to increase capacity to 200 tonnes a week and establish its fast growing ‘Better For You’ range.
“To realise our ambitions, it was clear that we needed to expand not only our capacity but also diversify our product portfolio with new technologies and innovations”, David said. “Our wish was to achieve this within Burts and extend our own capabilities, rather than look at the co-packing arrangements that some of our competitors have used. Therefore we needed to identify highquality existing businesses with a similar quality ethos, who could bring different snacking expertise and format technology to the table. Savoury & Sweet ticks both these boxes.”
As part of the deal, Burts has acquired the company’s 71,000sqft production facility in Leicester, as well as the on-site offices and warehouse. All 99 Savoury & Sweet employees will be retained and the business will be rebranded as Burts Snacks.
Burts’ aim is to expand its ‘Better for You’ business next year to £30m, creating additional jobs and tripling production capacity through investment in additional lines all within the current footprint of the existing Leicester plant. Plymouth will remain the home of Burts’ iconic potato chip, while the company will be utilising Savoury & Sweet’s frying, baking and popping expertise to expand its ‘Better for You’ business.
“This is an exciting time for Burts”, David said. “NPD is high on our agenda and we’re looking forward to introducing exciting innovations that will challenge the current UK snack market.”
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