FDBusiness.com

Quorn Foods, a global market leader in healthy, sustainable protein, has reported like-for-like sales totalling £112 million for the first six months of the year, up 12% on the same period in 2017. This growth builds on Quorn Foods’ strongest ever year of growth in 2017, and sees the company stay on track to become a billion dollar business by 2027.

Core to Quorn Foods’ growth strategy is ongoing investment in innovation and technological capability. Quorn Foods is to invest a further £7 million in a new Global Innovation Centre at its headquarters in the North East of England, creating a high tech British powerhouse and maintaining Quorn’s innovation leadership in the meat-free industry.

This high tech facility will break ground at the end of this summer, and enhance capability in both core protein fermentation, the heart of the Quorn Foods’ success, and innovation capability to develop new and better products. Quorn has already created over 100 jobs in the last year as it expands and expects to continue job creation, particularly in the STEM area as it brings the new facilities on line.

There is a clear global trend towards meat alternatives as consumers grow concerned about the health and environmental issues associated with excessive meat consumption. Around the world the meat-free category is growing rapidly, typically between 10% and 20%, and even a developed market like the UK is up 15%.

“With category momentum we are confident we can become a $1 billion business in under 10 years,” says Kevin Brennan (pictured), chief executive of Quorn Foods. “We are seeing lots of Silicon Valley investment and hype in this space but we have already built up 30 years of expertise in the meat-free category. With our renewed investment in R&D we expect to lead the way for decades to come. We hope to demonstrate that there are great British businesses in the North that can win on a global stage. We are already seeing amazing growth internationally: Australian sales are up 50% and US sales are up 23%. In the US supermarket giant Kroger, we now have the fastest selling product in the category. With continued investment we believe we can continue this level of performance.”

With its headquarters in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, Quorn Foods offers a wide range of great-tasting products to appeal to the rapidly expanding group of people wanting to reduce their meat consumption. The company employs 800 people and exports to 20 countries around the world, including Australia, South Africa and the USA. Quorn™ is one of the UK’s top 50 FMCG brands. Quorn Foods is the reporting group which includes a main trading company, Marlow Foods. Quorn Foods encompasses all international operations of Quorn™ and Cauldron™.