Bakkavor Group

Bakkavor is a UK-headquartered manufacturer of fresh prepared (chilled, short-shelf-life) foods — ready meals, pizza & bread, dressed salads, desserts, dips, sauces, soups, sandwiches and wraps — produced overwhelmingly as private-label for grocers (Tesco, M&S, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Asda, Morrisons) plus US and China operations. It runs ~43 manufacturing sites across the UK, US and China with ~18,000 colleagues and a portfolio of c.3,500 products; revenue is roughly £2.2-2.4bn ($2.4-2.9bn). Production is labour-intensive, 24/7, high-mix and chilled, with significant existing process automation on pizza/bakery lines but heavy reliance on manual labour for assembly, garnishing and plating. In 2025 Bakkavor was acquired by rival Greencore in a ~£1.2bn deal, creating a ~£4bn UK convenience-food group that has explicitly named automation as a key synergy agenda. As of mid-2025 the new CEO context and the merger make capital availability for automation a live theme.