A booming North Wales bakery has been given a formal royal seal of approval after its products went global and created 100 jobs.
Lord Lieutenant Harry Fetherstonhaugh, the King’s representative in Clwyd, presented staff at Jones Village Bakery with the prestigious King’s Award for Enterprise during a visit to its headquarters.
The firm has opened up new markets throughout the globe in recent years, establishing sales in Australia, the Middle East, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Norway.
The Lord Lieutenant was given a tour of the firm’s state-of-the-art flagship bakery on Wrexham Industrial Estate before presenting the King’s Award to CEO Simon Thorpe and Commercial Controller Glen Marriott, who has led the exports expansion drive.
And he heard more about the firm’s overseas success, including a lucrative deal to supply pancakes to Australia, and supplying a worldwide network of around 200 M&S stores with products.
The Lord Lieutenant praised the company’s workers for their role in the success of the firm and in attaining the award, which signifies the highest level of business achievement.
He said: “What the fantastic ingredient everyone here possesses as part of the team and as part of the Village Bakery family is their utter commitment to its success.
“The firm now exports to 14 countries and that is a staggering accolade to the work done here.
“At the end of the day it is all about the product, and the products here are top of the range, and they are of incredibly high quality and the dedication of everyone here is high quality.
“It’s another North Wales success story and that is absolutely great.
“The King’s Award is hugely prestigious, and there is a lot of competition for them.”
He said he was hugely impressed by the work that goes on at the bakery and how the company had so successfully rebuilt its business after a devastating fire in 2019.
He said: “It’s an amazingly complex bit of engineering it is an ingenious operation.
“It is an absolutely staggering set-up, and the innovative approach to everything is startling.
“It is hugely impressive, particularly after the horrendous drama of the fire. This is just an amazing resurrection.
“What is so lovely about this, and the ethos hasn’t changed, is the great commitment from the workforce, a lot of whom have been here a very long time.”
Reading the Royal Warrant on behalf of the King at the presentation, the Lord Lieutenant said the award recognised the firm’s “outstanding achievement demonstrated in the application of international trade”.
Glen Marriott said the presentation of the royal award was the product of years of hard work.
He said: “This is the culmination of a three-year plan that we have had.
“We were exporting into France in 2022 and then we had a delegation from the Department for Business and Trade come here in early 2023.
“That was a lightbulb moment because these people came here from around the globe and said ‘we want that’. And that was the catalyst for starting.
“The great thing is we have not actively hunted out customers, they have come to us.
“They have sought out Village Bakery because of the products we make, how well we deliver products, the technical standards we have here and the UK retailers we deal with.
“A lot of what we do is unique. The way we package pancakes here for example, nobody does in Australia and New Zealand.
“The gluten-free products we make – nobody else does those, so again it is a unique point of entry.
“We do owe the Department for Business and Trade both in the UK and globally, along with the Welsh Government, a great debt of thanks for all the support they have given us over the last three years.
“Without the help of the Department for Business and Trade guys here and in-market we wouldn’t have been able to get into some of the markets we are in.
“The support the Welsh Government has given us from a trade mission perspective, just getting our name out there, really does help.
“The award is a brilliant way to end the last three years, and now it’s onto the next chapter.”
CEO Simon Thorpe said a huge part of the firm’s export success was down to New Zealander Glen.
He said: “A huge amount of our work is down to Glen, about him building those relationships, managing those relationships.
“The supply chain element to this is clearly something of a challenge and it’s very complex, and it’s about having that agility to find those solutions.
“It is what we’re all about – it’s finding a way to make it work off the back of making the best quality products as well.”
Mr Thorpe paid tribute to all of the staff at the company for their hard work in helping the firm’s ongoing success.
He said: “The staff are the heart and the soul of this business.
“We still operate with no agency labour, we invest in our people, we want to look after them, we give them a nice environment, because we also want them to look after us too – it absolutely has to be two-way traffic.
“That belief in product and investment in the long-term in Wrexham is something which runs really deep, and long may that continue.”
Robin Jones, former MD at Village Bakery, attended the presentation of the King’s Award.
He said: “It was lovely to see the Lord Lieutenant here and to celebrate the award.
“As part of the Jones family I’m really honoured the company have won this award.
“They have worked incredibly hard for it.
“The award is testament to the hard work of all of the Village people.”
