The Bakkavor Group is an Icelandic international food manufacturing company founded in 1986 and specialising in fresh prepared foods and produce. The group operates 66 factories and employs over 19,000 people in ten countries with a pro-forma turnover of £1.68 billion (2011).

The group manufactures over 6,000 fresh prepared food products in 18 different product categories such as ready meals, soups, sauces, prepared fruits, vegetables and salads, breads, sandwiches, desserts.

The company’s operations in the United Kingdom are based mainly in Birmingham and at Spalding and Bourne in Lincolnshire, having acquired the fresh prepared foods group, Geest, on 13th May 2005. They are divided into four categories: chilled ready meals, chilled meal accompaniments, chilled ethnic snacks, chilled dips, dressings and sauces.

The Bourne operation is the result of a combination of Bourne Salads, Bourne Fruit and Bourne Stir Fry in early 2009 and the new combined site in Spalding Road was renamed Bourne Prepared Produce which employs around 1,000 people and produces salads, fruit, stir fry and prepared vegetables for supermarkets and stores through the country.

Refrigerated container lorries carrying fresh produce from countries around Europe wait at the factory gates at the Spalding Road plant ready for their turn to unload (top). Waste material from food processing is collected by local farmers to feed their animals (below).

WRITTEN IN MAY 2012

Formerly Geest plc

INCORPORATING BOURNE SALADS & BOURNE STIR FRY

The two food processing plants in Bourne owned by Geest plc, Bourne  Salads (left) and Bourne Stir Fry (right).

The Geest organisation is one of the leading companies in the U K producing fresh prepared food and produce, particularly for the retail markets. The company has a successful history dating back to the 1930s, founded by the brothers John and Leonard Van Geest, who originally concentrated on the importation of bananas from the West Indies. 

Today, their wide variety of produce and fresh prepared foods are supplied from sites predominantly in this country but also in Belgium, France, Spain and South Africa, employing some 9,000 people.

Two of their thirty business units, most of which operate in the U K, are based in Bourne. They are Bourne Salads, situated in new and expanding premises on the Spalding Road, and producing leafy salads, side salads and fresh herbs, while Bourne Stir Fry in Tunnel Bank concentrates on the stir-fry products that its name implies.

Geest has an extensive and diverse background of fresh food supply, evolving through the 20th century from a small family-run business into one of the leading fresh prepared foods and produce suppliers in the U K today. Their rate of growth and innovation can be assessed by the performance during 1999-2000 when more than 600 new or revised products were launched including sushi, toasties, organic ready meals, deli-style salads, dinner party pasta and even sweet dessert pasta.

Their object is clearly stated: "We intend to become the best fresh prepared food and produce company wherever we operate."

WRITTEN IN MAY 2002

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