Orchard Valley Foods targets sales of £30M

The company was on track to achieve £21M in its latest full-year results, md Mike Forrester told FoodManufacture.co.uk, but stressed: “We see ourselves at £30M in three to four years.”​

The business had experienced significant growth in the past few years, driven by the success of key customers in the casual dining sector, he said. Its acquisition of Daventry-based Food Ingredients International (FII) on April 16 this year​ would build on that, he added.

Investment plans​

And Orchard Valley had further investment plans beyond that, said Forrester. “We are investing several hundred thousand pounds to improve efficiency and throughput over the next three to four months.​

“We are increasing office space threefold and we have a whole programme of capital investment in our packing facilities.”​

As part of these latest developments, the firm was creating a new area for product applications and demonstrations to help attract new business, said Forrester.

‘50-60 new customers’​

The acquisition of FII had strengthened its product offering and brought “a net increase of 50-60 new customers, including some international clients we didn’t have,”​ he said. “We took their ingredients portfolio into Orchard Valley and we’re seeing a bit of traction with that.”​

In particular, FII would help grow Orchard Valley’s existing overseas customer base in Europe, North America and Australia, he said. “We have identified these as an important opportunity for export.”​

However, he stressed export sales were still a relatively small part of the business – roughly 5-6%.

Orchard Valley Foods is based in Tenbury Valley, Worcestershire, employs 54 people and supplies food mixes and industrial blends for a wide variety of applications, such as soups, sauces, gravies, infant formulations and cereal bars.

It supplies home baking products for consumers and supplies wholesalers, retailers, manufacturers and foodservice customers.