Jones Village Bakery on the rise at it triples exports

Overseas sales at the Jones Village Bakery in Wrexham are due to increase from £1.5 million last year to £5 million in 2023. The family firm’s award-winning products are already staple lines for most of the best-known supermarkets in the UK. The company, which has several bakeries on Wrexham Industrial Estate and another in Minera on the outskirts of the town, employs 800 people.

Two years ago, they opened a new 140,000 sq. ft. super bakery, which also houses the company’s HQ, their Baking Academy and Innovation Centre. Earlier this year they installed a new £2 million pancake production line – reckoned to be one of the biggest in the world – that’s created 20 new jobs. It will enable them to increase production to 75 million pancakes a year and give them the flexibility to make a range of different pancakes, from a small Scotch pancake to a large American style buttermilk pancake measuring seven inches across. As a result, they are able to cater for surging demand in the UK and from Europe, particularly France, Belgium and Holland.

The company has also landed a contract to supply bakery products to a large German retailer. All of this is on top of supplying a worldwide network of around 200 M&S stores with crumpets, scones, pancakes, bagels, rolls, Welsh Cakes and pikelets.

Robin Jones said: “We send products to anywhere in the world where there is an M&S franchise, including Hong Kong, Singapore, the Middle East and India, as well as the stores in Europe. We have a similar arrangement with the Waitrose stores in the Middle East and that’s something we have done for about three or four years.

He added: “Strategically, we have taken the decision to grow the export market and we have just taken on a senior national account manager, who is fluent in French and German. Her role will include actively pursuing those markets with pancakes, crumpets and other bakery products. We are continuing to grow and are getting more and more enquiries, so that is creating real momentum in terms of exports alongside our continued growth with our UK customers.

“Innovation is at the heart of our expansion both in the UK and abroad, because our brilliant new product development team are driving the growing appetite for our products. I think the secret of our success is our ability to make high-quality products in volume, whilst staying true to our roots as craft bakers.”

Haswells Chartered Accountants appoints first female partner in its history

Rachel Coles ACCA, manager of Haswells Chartered Accountants on the Wrexham Technology Park, has been appointed the first female Partner in the company’s 150-year history. Haswells began life in the late 1800s and has consistently remained within and around Wrexham.

Rachel started her career with Haswells in 2005 as a Trainee Accountant, quickly qualifying as an AAT in 2008 and ATT in 2013, rising to the position of manager in 2019. Rachel continued to work to ACCA, passing her final exams earlier this year.

Rachel commented: “While the finance industry has moved on apace during the last century, my appointment proves that women can have top roles within firms, even if this has never happened previously. I have worked towards this role for a long time and am honoured that my Partnership cements my place in Haswells’ history and its future. It means a lot to me that the current partners believe I am the right person to take the firm forwards and clients can be reassured that business will continue as usual.”