FDBusiness.com

Finsbury Food Group, a leading UK specialty bakery manufacturer of cake, bread and morning goods for both the retail and foodservice channels, is acquiring the business, production assets, stock and customer list of Johnstone’s Just Desserts from administrators FRP Advisory.

Johnstone’s, a supplier to the leading national coffee shop chains, produces cake, including its renowned caramel shortcake. Unaudited turnover for 2014 was £9 million. The proposed acquisition signals the escalation of Finsbury’s entry into the foodservice cake channel and in particular the high growth national coffee shop segment. This is in line with the group’s channel diversification strategy, indicated at the recent acquisition of the Fletchers Group of bakeries in 2014.

Completion of the acquisition is conditional on the finalisation of property lease details which both Finsbury and FRP are working on to complete as soon as possible. Finsbury will provide staff in relation to manufacturing and finance, to serve the purpose of ensuring a smooth integration process until completion.

Finsbury intends to work with the Johnstones management team at its existing site in East Kilbride to build on its strong customer relationships and market position and drive growth focusing on its high quality, well respected, coffee shop product ranges. All 150 employees will remain with the company.

John Duffy, chief executive of Finsbury Food Group, comments: “Johnstone’s Just Desserts will be a bolt on acquisition and is in line with our strategy to diversify into new channels. This, illustrates the group’s continued reach into the foodservice ‘out of home eating’ market and the broadening of our product offering and customer base.”