Associated British Foods is a diversified international food, ingredients and retail group with sales of £12.1 billion and 102,000 employees in 46 countries. It has significant businesses In Europe, Southern Africa, the Americas, China and Australia.
Allied Bakeries is part of ABF grocery group, operating across the UK, producing popular brands such as Burgen, Allinson, Sunblest and Kingsmill. As well as bread, our range includes rolls, pancakes, crumpets, muffins, hot cross buns, wraps and other delicious bakery products.
AB Pennine is one of 10 operating regions within Allied Bakeries, whose area covers Cumbria, North Wales, Merseyside, Yorkshire, Humberside, Hull, Stafford and of course Greater Manchester. We have one manufacturing site based at Stockport and 1 distribution depot at Bredbury.
The Stockport site employees over 541 staff who make, bake and despatch in excess of 2m products per week via the 82 routes that leave the bakery every day to deliver fresh product to our customers.
Stockport has three bread production lines:
- A Plant makes 450,000 loaves per week. (A mix of branded and own labelled products).
- B Plant makes 550,000 loaves per week. (A mix of branded and own labelled products).
- C Plant makes 1,100,000 loaves per week. (All branded products)
We service all the major retailers and deliver to circa 1800 stores a day attaining world class service levels of around 99%. We have 5 customer “Head Offices” within our region, these are Asda, Iceland, Morrison’s, Co-op and Heron Foods.
Following a comprehensive business review in 2009 the operation at Stockport was identified as a key strategic site to Allied Bakeries. As a result a £10m investment plan was pulled together to upgrade our baking and distribution operation. Initially this focused on improving existing bread production lines and the supporting infrastructure.
Then in 2011 we announced a £30m investment for AB Stockport known on site as Project Phoenix. This primarily focused on three key areas: Plant, People and Product (The 3 P’s).
Firstly it was about the demolition, construction, installation and commissioning of a state of the art bread production facility. This included a bread production line capable of producing over 1.1m loaves per week, 5 new 65 tonne flour silo’s, new basket wash facilities, upgraded secured site entrance, new environmentally friendly car park and improved site facilities for staff.
To us, being one of the UK’s leading bakery businesses, with brands that are a key part of a balanced nutritious diet, is a privilege that spurs us on to do even more, even better.
