Pieminister is heating up its expansion plan after securing a £1.4m bank funding package.

The premium pie maker is set to open five restaurants across the UK and create 80 jobs in the process.

It will use the finance package from HSBC to open and fit-out the new sites – taking the portfolio of restaurants and cafes to 16 strong – as part of a strategy to target university cities. The money will also be used for refinancing existing sites in Manchester and the Midlands, which were previously run by franchisees.

Managing director Jon Simon, who co-founded Pieminister in 2003 with Tristan Hogg, said: “The five new stores will underpin the next stage of our growth plans and will help to increase our turnover by around £4.5m a year.”

Pieminister returned to profitability in the year 31 March 2015 as a 21% growth in sales to £9.2m helped the business record a pre-tax profit of £99k.

The company has restaurants and cafes in Bristol, Nottingham, Cardiff, Leeds, Oxford and London.

Pieminister pies are also available in supermarkets such as features in Waitrose, Wholefoods, Booths, Sainsbury’s, The Co-operative, Ocado and Tesco as the business has stepped up its retail presence in recent years.