A bakery firm has bounced back from a devastating fire by clinching a multi-million pound deal to supply its new range of American-style bagels to a top 海角视频 retailer.
The bagels being made by the Village Bakery in Wrexham have been launched by a well-known chain - whose named isn鈥檛 being revealed - in more than 600 of their stores nationwide.
The news came just a month after the blaze that destroyed one of the family firm鈥檚 four bakeries.
The company has also announced it is going to rebuild the fire-damaged bakery and make the new one 鈥渂igger and better鈥 than the one it is replacing, either on the original site on Wrexham Industrial Estate or on nearby land in Ash Road.
In the meantime, workers have been redeployed to the Village Bakery鈥檚 other three bakeries where production has been stepped up to maintain supplies to their customers
Another 30 of the staff displaced by the fire are now working in the bakery making the bagels, using a specialist production line imported from Canada.
Economy minister Ken Skates, who is also the AM for Clwyd South, said: 鈥淭he Village Bakery have shown incredible resilience and also they鈥檝e kept their eye on the long term future and their ability to bounce back so quickly is nothing short of miraculous.
鈥淭he fact that they are launching a new product with their new range of bagels tells you all you need to know about the Village Bakery because it comes at a time when many people would have been wondering what the future of the company would look like. It is incredible.
鈥淚t shows the determination of the Jones family and also the ability of everybody within the Village Bakery family to bounce back from what could have been a terrible, monumental tragedy.
鈥淭he growth potential in the company is quite remarkable and the ambition is nothing short of enormous.鈥
Managing director Robin Jones and his brother, Christien, the projects director, spent a year researching and planning the launch of the new range of bagels, which include sesame, plain sourdough, cinnamon and raisin versions as well as an 鈥淓verything Bagel鈥 with garlic and onion.
He said: 鈥淔rom our point of view, the most important thing of all was that nobody was hurt in the fire, not even a scratch, which means we can now concentrate on creating an even brighter future for the Village Bakery.
鈥淭he bagels have been in the plan for a long, long time and last year Christien and myself went a road tour of the States, from New York, Philadelphia, Seattle to Portland in Oregon to understand what makes a great bagel.
鈥淲e have taken the best bits and brought them back to Wales. What we are making is a true sourdough bagel with a long fermentation - that鈥檚 what makes the difference to the product and ultimately it鈥檚 an artisan bagel, not mass produced.鈥
