Ambitious Market Drayton pudding maker eyes up £5m turnover target after expansion
Two new directors have been appointed at a Market Drayton food firm as the company eyes up further expansion.
Gills Puddings, which has been making and selling desserts for the hospitality trade in the town since 1996, has appointed Martin Overton and Scott Abey to the board as it prepares to ramp up production for a busy festive season.
The appointments come as the firm, which employs around 50 people in the area, eyes up a £5 million turnover target for next year.
New production director Scott has been employed at the company as bakery manager for 12 years, while operations director Martin has been with the company for five years, following a four-year stint in the food retail industry.
"We're probably treble the size we were pre-Covid so we've had to restructure the company to accommodate our growth," said managing director Kim Smith.
"We expect our next growth milestone towards the middle of next year to hit turnover of about £5m, which is what we're working on at the minute.
"We have no sales staff here, and we don't do much online presence either - it's all word of mouth. I've been around for so long that people I was talking to 30 years ago that were working as sous chefs are now executive chef directors, I've worked with them for so long now that they know who to ring."
The firm, which has its head office in Shrewsbury Road in Market Drayton, opened its wholesale bakery unit at Tern Valley Business Park in 2014. A gluten-free desert production unit, one of the first in the country, followed around five years later.
The firm is now set to take on more staff ahead of the busy Christmas season, as production of more than 100,000 Christmas puddings ramps up the company's Tern Valley facility.
"We're up to 50 staff and we will go up further because we're starting to build for Christmas now, we'll probably go into Christmas pudding manufacture at the end of next week," he said.
"We'll have between 120,000 and 150,000 Christmas puddings to make, as well as forecast orders for some of our clients for brownies. It's a busy period for us."
