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Group Strategy

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Delivering Profitable & Sustainable Growth

Realising our vision to lead the way in bringing innovative, great-tasting, freshly prepared food to people around the world.

We are focused on driving returns from our market-leading position in the UK, whilst also accelerating profitable growth in the US and China. These priorities are underpinned by our relentless focus on operational excellence and by being a trusted partner for all our stakeholders.

Drive returns by leveraging our UK number one market position

UK

Drive returns by leveraging our UK number one market position

Our strategy in the UK is to drive financial returns in the Fresh Prepared Food (“FPF”) market and strengthen our business for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Our Key Drivers
  • Leverage our leading market insights, product development expertise and breadth of food production capabilities to develop products and propositions that delight our customers and consumers.
  • Utilise our scale to develop, prepare and distribute our products with a more efficient and sustainable use of resources.
  • Leverage our customer relationships and market leadership to pursue profitable growth opportunities that allow us to create value for our shareholders.
  • Invest in attracting and developing talented individuals to retain our leading position into the future.
Our strategy in action
Drive returns by leveraging our UK number one market position

International

Accelerate profitable growth in the US and China

We have a strong and growing presence in the two largest food markets in the world, the US and China, where the Group has operated for over ten years. We use our Group expertise to support our local teams and deliver profitable growth.

Our Key Drivers
  • Invest in new capacity to respond to growing customer demand, and expand our offering to cater for the evolving needs of end consumers.
  • Broaden and strengthen existing customer partnerships, whilst building a pipeline of new customers who are committed to expanding their fresh food offer.
  • Combine deep local knowledge with Group expertise to develop innovative products that are tailored to local tastes and meet the highest safety standards.
  • Leverage Group experience to generate sustainable profitability improvements, by training local talent and embedding best-in-class manufacturing practices and technical standards.
Our strategy in action
Drive returns by leveraging our UK number one market position

Excellence

Deliver superior performance through operational excellence

We invest in our colleagues and assets to generate operational efficiencies and maintain the highest technical standards and service levels across our footprint.

Our Key Drivers
  • Identify opportunities to improve efficiency through our centralised, highly skilled Operational Excellence team.
  • Enhance productivity through automation investments and colleague training, with a focus on engineering skills.
  • Uphold the highest technical standards of food safety and health and safety, for the benefit of our colleagues, customers and consumers.
  • Establish a resilient and efficient global sourcing platform, supported by our dedicated teams in the UK, Spain and China.
  • Maintain our market-leading service levels through agile manufacturing and embedded resource within the supply chain.
Our strategy in action
Drive returns by leveraging our UK number one market position

Trust

Be a trusted partner for our people, customers, suppliers and communities

We strive to be a responsible, caring and trusted partner for all our stakeholders, and a positive force in our interactions with the world around us.

Our Key Drivers
  • Live our values by striving to do the right thing for our colleagues, customers, suppliers and communities.
  • Provide our people with a great place to work where they feel valued, included and inspired to perform at their best.
  • Be a responsible global business by reducing our environmental footprint and maintaining high ethical standards across our supply chain, in collaboration with our customers and suppliers.
  • Support our immediate communities through charity partnerships and local grassroots initiatives.
Our strategy in action
  • UK
  • UK
  • International
  • Excellence
  • Trust

Strategy in Action:

Building our new brand, The Delicious Dessert Company

  • We identified a gap in the cream cakes branded offering and an opportunity to attract new, younger consumers to this category.
  • Drawing on our market-leading capabilities and insight, we created our own brand, The Delicious Dessert Company.
  • In 2021, we launched a range of éclairs into two of our strategic retailers. Less than 18 months later, our expanded range of éclairs and loaded doughnuts is available in over 1,100 stores across three grocery retailers, making it the fifth largest and fastest-growing chilled desserts brand in the UK.
  • We have sold our products at festivals and events across the UK, and also featured on the BBC, with an exclusive celebration éclair for Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee.
  • We are excited about the pipeline of opportunities ahead. We plan to add further retailer listings, broaden the product range, and introduce first-to-market innovation across the chilled desserts category.
Drive returns by leveraging our UK number one market position 2 people

Strategy in Action:

US – Launching our market-leading fresh meals offer for a new customer

In early 2022, we started discussions with a large Midwest grocer to bolster their deli-counter offer with fresh, grab-and-go prepared meals. Within a few months, we had developed a range of six great-tasting single-serve meals. By October, the range had increased to ten products, available across the full estate of over 250 stores. Work is underway to further expand the range, in fresh meals and into other categories.

China – Launching a new product category in grocery retail

Working in partnership with a strategic retail customer, we identified an opportunity to launch a food-to-go fresh sushi offer. The category was new to Bakkavor, but following extensive product and process development in late 2021 we launched our first product. This was an immediate success and we now have a range of three top sellers listed throughout the customer’s store estate. This has invigorated our customer relationship and broadened our capabilities, providing a solid platform for future growth.

Family Food

Strategy in Action:

Targeted investments and footprint rationalisation to create a stronger UK Salads sector

Last year saw targeted investments in our UK salads sites, specifically:

  • In Tilmanstone, Kent, we upgraded one production line to allow full segregation of allergens, and automated another line to improve accuracy, increase speed and efficiencies, and also reduce our on-site labour requirements, given ongoing market pressures.
  • In Bourne, Lincolnshire, we increased capacity following a business win and replaced packaging equipment to reduce plastic usage, leading to material savings (465 tonnes of plastic annualised) and lower environmental impact.
  • To take advantage of the seasonal peak in salads and corresponding dip in meals, at our Boston site we proactively re-purposed meals production capacity to salads. As a result, we were able to effectively deliver on the salads summer peak in volumes.
  • We are taking action to protect profitability by closing one of our production sites in Sutton Bridge and rebalancing volumes across the remaining sites.
salad 2 people

Strategy in Action:

Driving food waste reduction across our UK business

  • Under our Trusted Partner ESG strategy, we are committed to halving UK food waste by 2030 to support the Champions 12.3 initiative.
  • In 2021, our UK food waste increased as production returned to pre-pandemic levels. Recognising the need to act, we implemented a dedicated taskforce to oversee governance procedures, regular reporting and action planning.
  • Our immediate focus was to collate timely and accurate data that could be analysed and reported at operational and management levels.
  • A new standard operating procedure was rolled out in Q2 2022, supported by roadshows to engage our colleagues, as well as internal verification audits.
  • Sites prepared specific plans to deliver operational efficiency through waste reduction, as well as maximising the use of surplus food and focusing on increasing redistribution.
  • Following this, a performance plan was established which focused on increasing food waste recycling through step-change opportunities at four high potential sites, and expanding the recycling pipeline at three others.
  • The benefit of our actions is seen as UK food waste improved by 110 basis points to 8.05% in 2022 (versus 9.15% in 2021).
  • Going forward, our focus on waste reduction will centre on close evaluation of product design specifications and the redesign of high-waste production processes.
Mexican Chicken 2 people
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