Newly Formed Burts Snacks Targets £100 Million Sales
Following its acquisition of Savoury & Sweet in December 2017, Burts Potato Chips has announced that it will now be known as Burts Snacks, highlighting the company’s commitment to becoming the UK’s leading producer of premium snacking products. Burts Snacks will continue to manufacture a range of crisps, popcorn, compression popped and flash fried products including Burts Potato Chips, Guinness Crisps, Jim Beam Crisps, Levi Roots Crisps, Lentil Waves, and the Popcorn & Me brands, and has just completed a further investment of over £7 million across its Leicester and Plymouth sites.
The investment will include the installation of a state-of-the-art frying hall in Leicester and pallet handling automation in Roborough to strengthen Burts Snacks’ position in the market. Further capacity will be added to its flash frying, popcorn and compression popping technologies in the second half of 2019, with specific focus on flash frying where capacity will be increased by 300%.
Sales of its potato chip products skyrocketed in 2018, helping it grow by 20%, with the acquisition of Savoury & Sweet pushing the figure to 54%.
As the UK’s fastest growing, independent snacking manufacturer, Burts Snacks is outperforming the crisps, snacks and nuts market with value sales increasing by 4% in the year to 21 April 2019[1]. As a result, Burts Snacks is expected to grow by 25% to £54.9 million this year, with sales in the first six months of 2019 reaching £25 million, driven by sales in all market segments, particularly the ‘better for you’ category.
With 306 staff across the UK in sites at Leicester and Plymouth, Burts Snacks has been busy recruiting 64 new jobs in Leicester, as it targets sales of £100m by 2022.
David Nairn (pictured), managing director of Burts Snacks, comments: “At a time when other UK snack manufacturers are consolidating into larger, multi-national portfolios, at Burts Snacks, we’re bucking the trend by staying true to our core values by remaining independent and investing in our people, products and facilities to ensure we maintain our status as the leading specialist in premium brand and private label snacks.”
[1] IRI 52 w/e April 2019
