Kara, the foodservice arm of Finsbury Food Group, has invested over £1 million in a new production plant at its Manchester site.

The investment will aim to enhance production efficiency and help improve the bakery’s capabilities and efficiencies, according to Kara.

The plant investment has gone towards the installation of a new doughball plant and freezer capability, which includes a brand-new freezer, feeding system, product conveyors, check weigher, new metal detector and hand-packing station.

Jon Cooper, business unit director at Finsbury Food Group, said: “With much of Kara’s customer base closing during the lockdown, the past few months have been a challenging period both for Kara and the Finsbury Food Group. It did, however, provide us with the perfect time to completely install and commission the new plant. This new installation protects and significantly increases our manufacturing capacity and importantly brings about less manual handling. We have already seen improved product quality and consistency.

“This investment has come at an important time. Doughballs have been identified as an increasingly important range within our product portfolio. We know that many foodservice operators and wholesalers are looking at menu shrinkage and switching to ingredients that offer multi-use.”