Food firm to rise with sixfigure sum for cake site

A Lanarkshire food business is to invest a six-figure sum to create a dedicated cake bakery in a move creating ten permanent jobs.

Shotts-based Bells Food Group is to pour £500,000 into the new facility after acquiring a 4,500 square foot former council depot next to its Dykehead Bakery in the town.

It will see cake manufacturing move into the new site, which is expected to be fully operational by Christmas 2018, and the existing Dykehead Bakery focus solely on pastry manufacturing.

The capital injection comes after the company, whose products include Kirriemuir gingerbread, and Scotch, steak, and macaroni pies, invested £3.6 million in doubling its pastry production capacity at Dykehead and creating a dedicated Bells Professional Pastry division. Last month Bells launched a new savoury bake range.

MD Ronnie Miles said the £500,000 investment is the latest in a programme of capital expenditure and new product development across its sweet, savoury and pastry businesses.