Sugar daddy takes over Renshaw

Renshaw, the industrial bakery ingredients business formerly known as Renshaw Scott, is to focus on product development following its takeover by Napier Brown Foods (NBF).

Renshaw general manager Bill Donnelly said it aimed to become one of the top three suppliers of bakery products. "We want to unleash the potential of Renshaw in to the UK," he said. "We have a whole raft of ideas."

Those included healthy products, particularly for children, which Donnelly described as a market that was "here to stay". Product ideas included low-carbohydrate, low-calorie and 'power bar' ingredients as well as natural fruit-flavoured coatings, developed under the Frucote name, for bakery and ice cream. Donnelly said there would be an enhanced range of chocolate fillings which were stable during baking.

The sale of Renshaw Scott's manufacturing arm to NBF by the Hero group for an undisclosed sum had released substantial investment for NPD, said Donnelly. Renshaw would also increase production capacity: "We want to work the assets harder."

Hero, he said, was mainly a branded retail products group which had been selling off its bakery ingredients operations over the past five years and had been unwilling to invest.

Renshaw will continue to make Supercook home baking ingredients for Hero. It claimed to be the UK's top manufacturer of marzipans, ready-to-roll icings and baking chocolate for manufacturers and retailers. It employed 120 in Liverpool and 55 in Carluke.