WE'VE CLOSED OUR KENDAL FACTORY.
This is a year of very significant change for us. After 32 years we have stopped tantalising the residents of Kendal with the aromas of Christmas. We have closed our Kendal factory and are moving production of our Christmas puddings from Cumbria to Merseyside.
Ian and Mairi Derbyshire have an established and successful wholesale bakery with a good accreditation. Their family business operates from spacious, open premises which we would have given our right arms for, having worked out of a rabbit warren of adjoining industrial units all these years. Admittedly their view of a huge cold store isn't in the same league as our view of the Kentmere fells, but you can't have everything.
We are working with Ian and Mairi to ensure continuity of recipe, quality and customer service before we finally retire and leave them to look after our baby.
Our steamers etc are already settled in their new home and we have made some lovely puddings. The Freshfield team have even made some without us holding their hands. We have had that familiar refrain from them. "I never eat Christmas pudding. I don't like it. But this is really lovely". If we had a pound......!
Sadly, for many of our fundraisers this is the end of the line. We have loved working with you and have been really proud to do so. We recognise that this particular niche involved a great deal of administrative time. We fully understand why Ian and Mairi regretfully feel that they do not have the resources to take on the elements of our business which involved in house label printing and complex order picking. They also feel that they want to concentrate this year on perfecting the Christmas puddings before they think of adding in any of our sponges.
HOWEVER, all is not lost. For the foreseeable future, we will be the contacts for fundraisers and corporate gift customers. We will print the labels here in Cartmel and send them directly to you or to Freshfield if you want them stuck on for you. But its only the 3 sizes of Christmas puddings and brandy butter and all must be in full cases. All orders will go out on pallets as this is so much simpler than preparing orders for parcel services. So if you are not ordering at least 10-12 cases the delivery cost may become prohibitive. Also you will need delivery to be somewhere where there will be people to help take the cases off the pallet.
Another HOWEVER. We may be able to find you another fundraiser nearby to share your delivery cost with and even better, if you are lucky enough to live in the glorious North West, Freshfield have direct delivery rounds from north Birmingham up to Lancaster and sideways into north Wales.
If you want to explore costs and options click HERE to contact Bern. If you want to talk labels click HERE for Carole. We are not using the web design page this year. If you prefer to speak rather then email just email through your phone number and best time to call you and we'll call you back when we are in front of a laptop and not out with the dog. Speaking of which Daisy is nagging. Hope to hear from you soon so we can work together find a way to make it viable for you.
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