Wirral bakery firm Baker & Baker, which makes donuts, muffins, brownies, cookies, cakes, and speciality breads, reports annual sales in the UK and Europe of more than £540m. Tony McDonough reports
Wirral bakery giant Baker & Baker is reporting annual sales of just over £540m for 2024 – slightly higher than the £537.8m reported for the previous year.
Baker & Baker is one of Liverpool city region’s biggest private sector employers, with around 650 people working at its production plant in Bromborough. Until April 2021 it was a division of US-based CSM Ingredients but now operates as an independent business.
It employs a total of 2,500 people at 12 European sites including Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, France, Germany and Belgium.
As one of Europe’s leading suppliers of bakery products, it produces donuts, muffins, brownies, cookies, cakes, specialty breads and viennoiserie categories.
Financial results for the 12 months to December 31, 2024, will be posted on Companies House in the next few weeks. This week the company has revealed some of the figures. It reports in euros and LBN has converted to sterling based on current exchange rates.
Gross profit grew 7.5% to £78m and its adjusted EBITDA (an alternative measure of profitability) increased to £28.3m from £23m in the previous year.
A year ago Baker & Baker reported pre-tax losses of £7.77m, better than the £14.1m losses a year earlier. This week’s release did not say whether the company had recorded a pre-tax profit for 2024. This will be revealed when the accounts are published.
Baker & Baker says its EBITDA performance excludes some one-off, non-underlying items incurred due to restructuring activities and divestments that do not reflect the underlying profitability of the group.
It recorded a slight decline in product volumes of 3.7% during the year, due to rising raw material costs and other inflationary effects. However, this was offset by gross profit growth driven by a positive shift in product mix and efficiency measures.
During the year the company invested just over £12m in its European operations. These included a significant investment at the Delmenhorst site in Germany to improve the management and filtration of palm oil across the site’s doughnut lines.
This project will deliver cost savings in addition to its positive sustainability impact, due to avoided carbon emissions via the use of lower palm oil volumes.
At the Bradford site in the UK’s Bradford, a new chocolate system was installed, allowing the facility to diversify its product offering.
This paved the way for the launch of three new products into continental Europe – a Milka chocolate cluster, Milka cookies and a Milka chocolate topped brownie. This product range has already seen strong initial growth in France during the first half of 2025.
Other new product launches the premium Côte d’Or brand for the first time in European fresh bakery, building on the group’s licensing partnership with Mondelēz. Côte d’Or muffins and doughnuts were launched into the Benelux markets in late 2024.
Baker & Baker has also developed its non-European footprint, growing its customer base across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern markets.
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Chief executive Matthew Acheson said: “Baker & Baker remains a clear leader in the American sweet bakery category in Europe, and our customers trust our expertise and market insight to drive sales across the retail and food service channels.
“We are pleased to have delivered another year of solid financial performance across the group, despite facing a series of geopolitical headwinds and fluctuating consumer confidence.”