Stump up the dough: Warburtons to spend millions on new bagel and crumpet factories
Warburtons is spending £56m on new plants and depots after shoppers swapped slice bread for crumpets and bagels during the lockdown.
The company will spend £28m on developing three new distribution depots and creating 150 new jobs, the Telegraph first reported.
The baker will also plough £26m into building two new bakery plants; one factory to make thin bagels that will be operational in June 2022, and another to make crumpets, which will be up and running in October.
The new distribution depots will be built in Widnes, Bognor Regis and Banbury and will replace three existing sites in Speke, Waterlooville and Buckingham. There will be no headcount reductions as part of the change.
Chairman Jonathan Warburton told the Telegraph that appetite for foods other than sliced bread was particularly strong among younger age groups.
“My adult children, even though they’re Warbutons, are probably only buying the occasional loaf of bread. But they’re likely to be buying a packet of bagels, or a packet or muffins or crumpets.”
The chairman added the shift in change in consumption had partly been driven by homeworking, and that he excepted it to “unravel as we go back to a more traditional way of working”.