Village Bakery sales rocket under new French owner

Village Bakery’s revenues have soared 20%, as rampant demand for premium breads pushed annualised sales to £123.4m.

The Welsh baker and M&S supplier’s latest accounts revealed turnover hit £154.3m in the 15 months to 31 December 2024, as it filled sourdough and pancake lines installed a few years prior with orders for new and existing customers.

Village Bakery said further growth had come through its ability to respond to changing customer requirements, particularly for in-store bakery items, and through new product development.

The baker’s growth has improved profits substantially, with gross margin over the accounting period jumping 5.2 percentage points to 30.3%. Operating profits more than doubled, rising from £5.4m to £13.3m on an annualised basis.

Village Bakery’s record year has given it a good start under new owner Menissez, which acquired a controlling interest in the business in June 2024 from London PE firm Limerston Capital. 

A bakery group headquartered in France, Menissez had already supplied a small range of part-baked sourdough baguettes to retailers including Sainsbury’s and Costco. The acquisition has given it a substantially larger footprint in the UK – and has given Village Bakery the chance to expand into Europe. 

International sales climbed from £1.3m to an annualised £2.9m, with directors noting in the company accounts the deal gave room for Village Bakery to grow from intercompany sales.

The company’s highly-invested facilities – rebuilt as a new 140,000 sq ft ‘super bakery’ after a fire destroyed a third of capacity in 2019 – produce traditional bread and rolls alongside bagels, scones, crumpets, pies, pastries and Welsh cakes from a 35-acre estate in Wrexham.

Thanks in part to Limerston’s investment in its facilities, Village Bakery has grown rapidly since the fire, swelling from around £23.3m of turnover in the year to October 2020 to its current £123.4m. It now employs 900 staff.

Village Bakery can trace its history in Wales back to 1934 and is today run by the third generation of the Jones family. Alan Jones took on the Wrexham bakery in 1964 and transformed it from a regional player to the number one supplier of private-label baked goods to supermarkets, with Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons, Ocado and Co-op featuring on its order books.

M&S accounts for a large proportion of the company’s sales, with Village producing the retailer’s premium own-label sourdough.