Alana Spencer is notable for winning the twelfth series of BBC One’s The Apprentice in 2016 and received an investment from Lord Sugar for her luxury cake business, Ridiculously Rich by Alana.
It has always been important to Alana that her products are manufactured in Wales using the finest ingredients and in October 2019, Ridiculously Rich moved into its first purpose built bakery in Alana’s home town of Aberystwyth. The technical team from Food Centre Wales supported Alana throughout the move to her new premises by assisting her with the factory layout, equipment sourcing and HACCP Plans.
Food Centre Wales helped Alana’s new factory achieve SALSA standards in just six weeks – the food technologists conducted a gap analysis of the processes and procedures to identify the areas that needed work to achieve the SALSA accreditation and offered guidance to reach those standards. Gaining SALSA accreditation at the new site has enabled the business to continue its growth plans, reach new market sectors and has opened up larger opportunities for the business as a whole.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Food Centre Wales has been assisting Ridiculously Rich with labelling requirements and content for reformatting labels following a shift to more prepacked items requested by its customers. Food Centre Wales was available to advise Ridiculously Rich on creating legally compliant labels.
Benefits of the Support
Since the bakery officially opened in October 2019, Ridiculously Rich by Alana have expanded their product range by 30% and opened an on-site shop to sell bespoke products. The bakery’s popularity has led to large queues seen frequently outside the door.
The help available from Food Centre Wales was amazing and we couldn’t have done it without them. They were there every step of the way, before we had even built the bakery! They helped us with any question, large or small and even came out to visit us on site on numerous occasions to guide us in the best way to become SALSA approved. The funding available to businesses in Wales is incredibly helpful, this process would have taken much longer had we not had this help and may have substantially delayed growth for the business.”