Mackie’s scoops major supermarket deal
Ice-cream-maker Mackie’s of Scotland has welcomed a major hike in listings with supermarket chain Sainsbury’s across hundreds of stores in England and Wales.
The fifth-generation familyrun firm, based in Rothienorman, Aberdeenshire, has secured a distribution deal with the retail giant to supply its honeycomb ice cream and new flavour strawberry swirl to 500 stores south of the Border.
The company said this will catalyse recent market growth in England and Wales, with sales director Stuart Common adding: “This is a really encouraging start to the year and securing these new listings and extending existing arrangements is building on a trend which saw us grow sales in England and Wales by more than 40 per cent in 2020/21.
“While always very happy to see our established flavours finding their way to more consumers over a wider geographic spread, we are especially pleased that our investment in developing new flavours has received a warm welcome by one of the UK’S leading retailers.
"It’s great to be getting second and third flavours into English and Welsh stores.”
The news comes after the firm appeared on the BBC’S Inside the Factory programme in which Gregg Wallace toured the farm and made his own batch of honeycomb ice cream, with sales of the product jumping by more than 200 per cent after the show aired.
Mackie's says it is one of the UK'S top ice cream brands, and earlier this year it revealed how turnover for the year ending 31 May, 2021, increased by 11 per cent to £18.5 million while operating profit rose by 19 per cent to £4.1m.