What we do
Northern Foods makes great tasting food. We produce outstanding branded and retailer own brand ready meals, sandwiches and salads, pizza, biscuits and puddings. With revenues of nearly £1 billion, we employ around 10,000 people at sites across the UK and Ireland.
We are well known for the quality of our food and our commitment to customer service. We also enjoy a long-standing reputation for innovation and delivering high rate of sale products for our customers.
Northern Foods was behind the creation of the chilled ready meal, we've led the frozen pizza market with our Goodfella's range, and we've built on a heritage dating back to 1853 to develop our Fox's biscuit brand.
Our strategy
The company has a clear strategy to:
- Focus on attractive market segments
- Partner with customers who require quality, innovation and high levels of customer service
- Delivery through a low cost, high performance business model
Key facts
- Northern Foods has around 20 operating sites across the UK and Ireland specialising in chilled, bakery and frozen food production
- Each of our chosen markets - Pizza's, Biscuits, Ready Meals, Sandwiches & Salads and Christmas Puddings - has strong potential and satisfies one or more of the consumer drivers of convenience, indulgence and living a healthy balanced lifestyle
- We produce innovative own-label ranges for the UK's leading retailers across all of our chosen markets
- We also produce a wide range of well-known branded products for UK and Irish retailers including Fox's, Goodfella's, Holland's Pies, Grassington's Food Co, Dalepak, Donegal Catch, Matthew Walker, and in Ireland only, Green Isle frozen foods
- Our brand and own-label split is approximately one-third: two-thirds and our sales to our top five customers - Asda, Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco - represent around three-quarters of total revenue
- Our sales to the 'hard' discount retailers or discount products to our main customers account for around a fifth of our Group sales
- Northern Foods formally began life in 1937 as a family-run dairy business. In 1942 the business was registered as Northern Dairies and became a public company in 1956. The company changed its name to Northern Foods in 1973 to reflect the range of food it sold
- Northern Foods' executive directors are Chief Executive - Stefan Barden and Group Finance Director - Simon Herrick. The Northern Foods Operating Board also includes business unit directors - Convenience Foods, Robin Walker; Biscuits business, Graham Hunter; Ready Meals, Garry Walsh; Sandwiches and Salads, Kuldip Kular and Frozen, Ian Meadows
