Ranjit and Baljinder Boparan Singh’s 2 Sisters Food Group has had a good year. Significant acquisitions and increased turnover and profits have added to the robustness of the firm and allowed the husband and wife team to take a £12 million dividend.
The West Bromwich-based company – best known for its Buxted brand of whole chickens and chicken dishes – has posted profits of nearly £34 million, an increase of 33 per cent and raised its turnover to more than £1 billion. The company’s success comes despite spiralling feed ingredient costs which are hitting many food manufacturers.
At the beginning of 2010 the company acquired the famous fish and chip restaurant chain Harry Ramsdens for an undisclosed sum and Ranjit Boparan says he plans to open 100 more branches of the famous Yorkshire company over the next five years, creating 600 new jobs.
The Boparans bought Five Star Fish, a subsidiary of the collapsed company British Seafood, and the Dutch poultry processing business the Storteboom Group. Rebranded as 2 Sisters Storteboom BV, the newly acquired company has two slaughterhouses in The Netherlands and one in Poland, five processing plants and a workforce of 1,500. The company processes three million chickens a week.
The company’s Devon plant – formerly Lloyd Maunder – is benefitting from a £4 million investment to turn it into a centre of excellence for specialist chicken products for major supermarkets.
This sort of ambitious expansion and investment has meant that the business – founded in 1993 – now employs 7,000 people on 17 sites in the UK, Holland and Poland.
The UK flagship of the group is its Scunthorpe processing plant which has been operating form more than 20 years. After a major investment programme it is now one of the most modern and best equipped food processing plants in Europe.
The Boparans – both 43 – are very keen on training and developing their workforce and are proud of their record of putting employees through NVQs on factory and farm production.
They are also proud of the high standards of animal welfare and food safety among their partner companies and suppliers.
