The owner of Ginsters pasties has taken a share in Higgidy, the £25 million turnover maker of posh quiches, frittatas and sausage rolls.
Leicestershire’s Samworth Brothers has bought a “minority” share in the West Sussex snacking and pies business, with the intention of supporting its plans for growth.
A Samworth Brothers spokeswoman would not say how big a share it had taken, but said there was an option for the Melton-based, £1 billion-plus turnover, foods giant to increase its stake in the coming years.
She said: “Higgidy will remain a separate business with its own manufacturing facilities.”
Samworth Brothers chief executive Flor Healy also becomes a non-executive director of the Higgidy board.
Documents filed with Companies House showed sales at Higgidy Limited were up almost £1.5 million in the year to September 30, 2018, following a period of “consolidation and brand investment in 2017”.
However, it made pre-tax losses of £180,000 – following a £386,000 investment in “plant machinery and leasehold improvements” – compared to a pre-tax profit of more than £817,000 a year earlier.
Higgidy now has an 8.3 per cent share of the “branded pie, quiche and sausage roll” market.
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The business was founded by Camilla Stephens in 2003 who wanted to bring “innovation and delight” to the pie category. She was later joined by her husband James Foottit and chief executive Mark Campbell.
Vegetarian lines now make up more than two-thirds of sales, and all of its products are made at its factory in Shoreham-by-Sea, which employs more than 300 people.
Mark Campbell said: “We love making feel good family food and our long-term ambition for Higgidy is to build an enduring British food business that we can all be proud of in the decades to come.
“We’ve always known that to achieve this in our sector we’d need to partner with a larger business at the right moment.
“With significant opportunities opening up for us in the market this feels like the exactly right moment and Samworth Brothers’ fit with our values and culture as well as our strategic alignment make them the exactly right partner.”
Samworth Brothers is a fourth-generation family business employing more than 9,000 people.
Its brands include Ginsters, Soreen, the West Cornwall Pasty Co, sports nutrition brand, SCI-MX and pie specialists Walker & Son and Dickinson & Morris.
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It is also a big supplier of sandwiches – so-called “food-to-go” – and ready meals.
Its chief executive Flor Healy said: “The Higgidy team has been extremely successful over the past 16 years in growing a much-loved and contemporary premium consumer brand with strong retailer partnerships.
“Our own business already has a great track record in developing brands with distinctive identities and brand stories.
“We are also strong in savoury pastry and food-to-go and have been successful in innovating and developing these categories further in recent years.
“Our involvement in Higgidy will help build on these existing business strengths and open up significant new opportunities.
“We are also impressed by Higgidy’s success in developing a significant percentage of sales in vegetarian and vegan product lines and look forward to working with the Higgidy team on further innovation in such areas.”