FDBusiness.com

Kara, the food service arm of Finsbury Food Group, has invested over £1 million in new production plant at its Manchester site. The major investment will directly enhance production efficiency and help improve the bakery’s capabilities and efficiencies.

The plant investment has gone towards the installation of a new doughball plant and freezer capability. This includes a brand new freezer, feeding system, product conveyors, check weigher, new metal detector and hand-packing station. Structural improvements have also been made to the building fabric including a replacement of the floor area and installation of energy efficient LED lighting.

This multi-million pound investment will deliver numerous benefits to the site; most significantly, it is anticipated that the new plant will increase capacity by 30%. Alongside the increased manufacturing capability, it is also predicted that less downtime and product wastage will be incurred.

Jon Cooper, Business Unit Director at Finsbury Food Group, comments: “With much of Kara’s customer base closing during the lockdown the past few months have been a challenging period both for Kara and the Finsbury Food Group. It did, however, provide us with the perfect time to completely install and commission the new plant. This new installation protects and significantly increases our manufacturing capacity and importantly brings about less manual handling. We have already seen improved product quality and consistency.

“This investment has come at an important time. Doughballs have been identified as an increasingly important range within our product portfolio. We know that many foodservice operators and wholesalers are looking at menu shrinkage and switching to ingredients that offer multi-use. Our doughballs are sufficiently versatile to be used across all day parts and in a cross-section of dishes and cuisine types.

“The new Kara website suggests numerous ways that doughballs can be used alongside the traditional pizza base including the likes of garlic doughballs, cinnamon rolls, flatbreads, international dishes like Turkish Pide and even a Chocolate S’mores for dessert menus.”