Expanding business La Crème Patisserie has acquired new premises near Newport, following a £500,000 loan from the Development Bank of Wales.
The move into a 11,000 sq ft building, which is eight times larger than its previous premises in Port Talbot, comes as the company gears up for a major new contract.
The business will be supplying cakes, desserts and afternoon teas to the new International Convention Centre Wales (ICC Wales,) which will open later this year at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport.
The investment by the development bank has already led to four new jobs being created, with the firm's head count expected to rise to 30 over the next 6-18 months.
The business was set up 11 years ago by its managing director Sian Hindle, who graduated with a degree in home economics and worked for Tesco in London for several years on new product development.
Having outgrown its premises at Baglan, Port Talbot, the business needed to find larger production facilities to accommodate growing orders.
And its new facilities, which includes an accredited gluten free and vegan facility will allow La Crème to increase production six-fold over the next three years from around 20,000 portions of cake each week to 120,000.
The company, which had been trading from Port Talbot for 11 years, has made a name for itself on the patisserie scene supplying products to Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace and Kew Gardens, and to major sporting venues and events such as the Cheltenham Festival.
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Ms Hindle's husband and business partner Ian, who deals with sales, accounts and distribution, said: “Sian is a fantastic role model for women in business, especially as one who’s had a career break to look after children and then gone back into work. Her ideas and energy drive us forward.
"We were approached 18 months ago by the culinary director of the Celtic Manor who said they would have a substantial requirement for cakes, desserts, afternoon teas and morning pastries for the new convention centre.
“We had worked with them before, and we knew we needed a new, bigger manufacturing site to satisfy their needs. This site in Cwmbran is just minutes from the Celtic Manor so its strategically perfect.
“Now we’ve got the new premises we’ve got larger stock holding capacity and larger freezer capacity. Going forward, we would like to do more stadiums and events and we now have the facilities to handle these larger contracts.”
Stephen Galvin, senior investment executive at the Development Bank of Wales said: “La Crème Patisserie was already in a strong position, with a prestigious client list.
"However, as clients’ needs grow, businesses need to be agile in order to grow themselves. Moving to the new site in Cwmbran has been an exciting and pivotal milestone for the company and demonstrates how accessing finance through the development bank can help accelerate development.”