The icing on the cake: Real Good Food acquires Rainbow Dust Colours

21-Jan-2015 - Last updated on 21-Jan-2015 at 12:05 GMT

Rainbow Dust specializes in edible glitters, dusts and paint for the sugarcraft cake sector

Real Good Food has snapped up cake decoration specialist Rainbow Dust Colours for £4m ($6m) to edge further into the growing global sugar-craft category, its marketing head says.

Rainbow Dust Colours manufacturers a range of specialized cake decorating products, including edible glitter, dust and food paint, selling throughout the UK and into Europe.

Andrew Brown, marketing director at Real Good Food, said the company aligned well with Real Good Food’s baking business Renshaw and would deepen its expertise in sugarcraft.

“During the course of last year, we’ve seen with our Renshaw business quite a lot of success and continued growth in home baking. But it’s more than just home baking; it’s the cake decorating market. Cake decorating has become quite a global trend with some of the decorations becoming more and more exotic and many consumers taking it up as a hobby,” he told BakeryandSnacks.com.

“We clearly have our own capabilities at Renshaw, but we felt we wanted to look at opportunities where there were products we don’t manufacture, like edible glitters, food paints and edible glue… It is, to some extent, the more skilled end of the market but we do believe it’s moving that way – people are looking to upskill and become more ambitious with their creations.”

Eyes on Europe

Rainbow Dust Colours adds a wealth of new products to Renshaw, says Brown

Brown said the acquisition would also help Renshaw deepen traction in Europe – where 25% of its products were exported.

“We’ve set up our [Renshaw] business in Brussels, focusing initially on the Benelux area and France. What we’ve found is each market is slightly different and that was one of the reasons we wanted to have an office over there so we could be much closer to the market and understand these differences. In France, for example, white cake decorations are quite popular whereas in the Netherlands we’re selling a lot of Renshaw colored products – there are trends and fashions within this market which is unusual in food, perhaps.”

He said the acquisition of Rainbow Dust Colours would strengthen market knowledge but also penetration because of new product offerings.

“We’re going to sit down with the team at Rainbow Dust and work out the short-term plan. Our sales channels, particularly in Europe, will be an opportunity and that’s one of the first things we’ll look at. Over the last 18 months, we’ve set up a number of customers in Europe and offering the Rainbow Dust offerings to those customers will be a first.”

Consumers are becoming increasingly skilled in cake decorating, says Brown

Cakes future? Skilled sugar-craft

Brown said that despite a recent decline in the broader home baking category, Renshaw had seen continued growth, particularly with its sugar-based, cake decorating products. The UK home baking market declined in value by 3.2% for the first half of 2014, according to IRI data.

“You’re getting more penetration into the market and most consumers into cake decorating are looking to be more ambitious in what they produce… We certainly want to maintain mass appeal, but the market is becoming a bit more aspirational, so we see consumers becoming more skilled generally,” he said.

In addition there were increasing demands from business-to-business customers, he said, where bakeries were looking to de-skill production plants and buy in sugar pastes and colors.

Both Rainbow Dust founders will be kept on and will lead the business and operations as a standalone company that works alongside Renshaw.