Allied Bakeries (AB), the bakery unit of Associated British Foods, has created 27 new jobs after launching a new line of Kingsmill Sandwich Thins, spending £8.4m.
The British multinational food processing and retailing company has opened a new facility at its Glasgow site and 27 new jobs have been created as a result, management revealed.
Additional space is now available, which is what decided AB to open the new facility at its Glasgow site, choosing this location over others such as the Orpington factory in Kent, where 170 jobs are currently at risk due to a long-term decline in the plant bread market.
As the Glasgow site has the facilities to produce 33,000 sandwich thins an hour, it was a preferable location during this decline.
The new range of sandwich thins will be available throughout the UK from this month, initially becoming available at Asda, followed by Tesco and Morrisons.
Speaking at a launch event in London yesterday, AB’s head of innovation, Janene Warsap told Just-Food that said the line hopes to tap into “three key trends” around “taste, convenience and health”. The rolls are “soft”, “versatile”, come pre-sliced and contain only 99 calories, she explained.
Two varieties will be available: white and 50-50. “White bread is the most popular flavour and has mass appeal… and we know people are looking for healthy alternatives so we are also using the strength of the 50-50 brand,” Warsap said.
In the future, Allied Bakeries could hope to extend the brand by supplied other varieties of brown and wholegrain.
The company hopes to gain a 25% market share as the Kingsmill brand attracts more and more people to the alternative bread product category.
Sandwich thins have seen the number of UK consumers buying them increase from 2m to 6m over the past three years.
The launch puts Kingsmill against Warburtons’ own range of sandwich thins. AB’s marketing director Jon Wilson admitted that the products did not have a lot of differences, but emphasised that the Kingsmill version nevertheless had something new to bring to the table.
“What Kingsmill is bringing [that is] new and different is that it has a reach and appeal that will bring in families.” Wilson stated.
