What were your main priorities for 2025?
I like to focus on one key area each year, and for 2025, this was health and safety. My priority was to really raise the team’s profile across the business. This enabled our Head of Health and Safety, Nick Jones, to confidently communicate and engage the whole business in health and safety matters, and to drive projects forward.
My other priority was to ensure that we’re ready for significant growth over the next year. We have a huge future ahead of us with our ZEUS™ baking powder range and the solutions it can offer. To best support our customers and their development initiatives, investing in the bakery and the laboratory was a fundamental must. Similarly, upgrading our mill line to make production more seamless was a major focus. The changes made were massive improvements, streamlining production into one continuous process, reducing forklift truck movements and improving health and safety across the site.
What improvements have been made to the facilities at Kudos Blends?
Investment in both the laboratory and the bakery was a real priority this year. In terms of equipment, we were absolutely outgrowing the laboratory. It simply wasn’t big enough for the expanding team of chemists. With the bakery, we want to be able to bring international customers to site, so it’s really important to have facilities that we’re proud of. Jo Flower did a fantastic job managing that project, and the bakery looks fantastic. We’ve introduced a wide range of new equipment, which is now being used every day.
At the beginning of the year, we also invested in additional units on Old Station Business Park, where we are based. For many years, another company has been located between our units, and I’ve been dying to expand into that space! Eventually, this became possible, and that has really set us up for future growth.
Buying those buildings enabled us to have another warehouse, giving us some additional storage and a new office block. It has also created a new office for the operations team. I felt it was really important to position this team closer to the manufacturing facilities, so they’re now situated in the middle of all the production units. This means they can see what’s going on more easily and, most importantly, continue to keep people safe.
How did the ‘Year of Health and Safety’ impact the business?
A major achievement for the Health and Safety team this year has been the significant improvements made to workplace transport. As the site has grown, we now have more lorries coming to the site, multiple offloading areas and increased forklift truck movements.
One big initiative was improving pedestrian safety on site. We invested in road markings, both on the driveway into the industrial estate and around our facilities, clearly directing people to the correct walkways. This has been highly successful – people just can’t help going between those yellow lines and know exactly where they should be walking!
How did the team grow and develop last year?
I am so pleased that Paul Hollywood joined our team at the beginning of the year. He’s a highly experienced baker who has worked in a wide range of businesses and understands both industrial bakery processes and ingredients in great detail.
At Kudos Blends, we often focus on the chemistry behind ingredients and how they work, but the practical application of those ingredients is just as important. Paul’s experience has enabled us to fine-tune several products to optimise their performance. And he’s top-class at supporting customers because he fully understands the ingredients used throughout the bakery process.
We also added an additional member to the finance team, James Cooper. James was an apprentice in his previous company who worked his way up, and he is absolutely superb at managing finances for the operations team. He processes everything in relation to the operational spend of Kudos Blends. He’s just great!
This year, we also had our first apprentice join our Chemistry team. A lovely young man Morgan, who is local to Kudos Blends – he has already shown great potential, and I believe that he will continue to grow and develop within the business.
One of the things that is really important to me is to recognise when people grow and develop in their roles. This year, several individuals have increased their responsibilities, changed their job titles and been given more authority within the business, and that’s really in recognition of their performance.
What were your highlights of 2025?
Our 25th celebration party was definitely one of the biggest highlights of the year! Reaching 25 years of Kudos Blends is a huge milestone, and it was just an incredible way to celebrate it. My team did a fantastic job organising the event, which was absolutely top-notch. The attention to detail was superb, and the venue was incredible. It was wonderful to invite key suppliers and customers, friends of Kudos Blends and friends of mine from over the years. The best thing I’ve ever done!
Another highlight was our the IBIE exhibition in Las Vegas. We had not taken part in any large exhibitions since before the pandemic, and in September, we exhibited at IBIE. It was the most successful exhibition we’ve ever done. Our focus on the trends and challenges within the industry, and the specific solutions our baking powders offer, meant we were far more targeted in our approach. As a result, the quality of visitors and the leads that we had were absolutely top notch, meeting with some “big brands” in the baking industry.
What other successes stand out from last year?
There have been some important business achievements this year. One key example was sending our Technical Product Manager, to visit and validate our Chinese suppliers firsthand. Over several weeks, he visited multiple supplier sites, giving us a much clearer understanding of their operations, capabilities, and standards. This also helped us strengthen the right relationships for the long-term benefit of the business. Having a chemist personally assess our suppliers has given us far greater confidence in who we are buying from.
One of the key partnerships of 2025 was with Firestarter Business Solutions. They provided support and coaching for our marketing and sales teams, and this has really made a fundamental difference to both teams. Building on our already strong culture of first-class customer service, Firestarter has really helped to grow the sales team’s confidence, particularly in dealing with those tough conversations with suppliers and customers – situations that are crucial for building trust and understanding with our industry peers. It’s a similar story with the marketing team; Firestarter’s guidance has helped to shape them into a really cohesive and autonomous group, consistently producing fantastic marketing material and growing our social media presence. I strongly believe that seeking external support and advice from experts is nothing to be ashamed of. As a business leader, recognising others may have greater expertise in certain areas can only benefit your team.
There has been great success with our marketing activity. The expansion of the team and the investments in our website in 2024 are really starting to pay off. In 2025, there was a concerted marketing effort to focus our message and increase our presence. The team have worked really hard on developing sales aids, organising exhibitions and working to develop a clear marketing strategy. This activity has made a significant difference to our leads, and I know the team have some big ideas ahead. For that reason, my plan is for 2026 to be the year of marketing!
How would you summarise 2025?
I would describe 2025 as being one of quite considerable investment, putting an infrastructure in place to support the business growth of 2026 and beyond. It was also about ensuring that the team I have around me is the right team, making sure that we are all on the same page and moving in the same direction.
I am super proud of every single member of my staff, from production through to the office staff, and I think they’re all on board with the journey we are on together. As the business grows and evolves, the team around you need to grow and evolve with it. It is those people who stay with you and make the company what it is.
