The French don’t celebrate birthdays with the kind of cakes consumers in other western countries do, says Adam Arnott, sales director at Finsbury Food Group. But his business is changing that, and leading the category into a now growing market.
Acquired out of public ownership by asset management firm DBAY Advisors for £143.3m in 2023, Finsbury has since set about restructuring its operations, targeting new growth areas and strengthening the parts of the business it leads in.
As with most businesses now, organic growth is the buzzword for Finsbury, but Arnott also says growth through acquisition is on the cards too. Though he won’t reveal more than that.
Finsbury was established in 2002 and has grown to operate nine business units across the UK and Europe, covering markets from France, Benelux, Scandinavia and Switzerland.
Over 314m baked products, from the hands and minds of 3,000 employees, are produced annually from the sites.
Though the business is in private ownership and there is a lot of optimism on the horizon, Arnott and the group are still dealing with the same challenges as other companies in the category.
“On the face of it, performance has been reasonably flat in the last year,“ he says.
Challenges of global bakery
“There have been lots of challenges and they’re still going on. For example, the market is trying to control inflation and volume growth. For us, we’re trying to find the right areas to grow.”
Some of the market’s strong area of sales – cake and sweet treats – have seen sales reductions, leading Finsbury and the like to pivot.
Inflation of course, has also stung the category. But Arnott and the group believe in keeping the basics right and innovating with new flavour profiles, as well as tapping into upcoming trends. This, he says, keeps the business ahead of its competitors.
There’s also been a recent shift in consumers buying more into the holiday seasons – Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, etc… – than in the past. Sales of Valentine’s Day chocolates rose a whopping 512% this year, for example.
“Consumers are really buying into the holiday seasons, they’re looking for the good and fun things now,” he says, citing the current socioeconomic difficulties as reason why.
“You also have retailers putting a huge focus on the seasonal opportunities. Not only is there a consumer wanting to find the enjoyment, the retailers are showing them how to get access to it and putting it front of mind.”
In terms of wider business objectives, Finsbury will continue to focus on its heartland of bakery through any upcoming acquisition.
It also has a strong licensed portfolio, a unique selling point as such partnerships require strong management and communication to maintain the relationship.
Brands Finsbury works with under licence include Disney, Thorntons, Universal and Mary Berry – a celebrity chef in the UK.
“The licensed portfolio for us is now sitting at about 20% of our business,” he says.
“Working with licensed companies can really allow access to something that a business would struggle to create on their own, you can have immediate strength and recognition through licensing a big brand.”
Finsbury has been strong in licensed cakes, and Arnott says the business is “quite unique” in its model as it can offer a diverse range of product for both branded partners and retail.
Clean label sourdough
Back to the baking and Arnott says Finsbury is turning its attention to clean labelling, as retailers and their consumers want more. This is particularly strong in bread, with sourdough maintaining pull with consumers.
But, what about selling birthday cakes to the French? For the last 18 years, Finsbury has built its birthday cake scale in France, leading the way as other businesses attempt to achieve similar results.
“One of the biggest things of ours the French market enjoys is our celebration birthday cakes,” he explains. “They’re not used to celebrations as we do in the UK.”
But he says, while the look and feel of the cakes might be similar to those in the UK market, the taste of the products in France are quite different.
“Historically, how the French taste buds take it are different, but we do use a lot of our licenced portfolio, naming like that is relevant to market growth in France.”
