IN Brief:
- Bakeit Food has invested £3m in a new granola factory in Winchester.
- The site combines baking, packing, and warehousing, with multiple pack formats.
- Capacity is up to 220 tonnes per month, with additional lines planned.
Bakeit Food, the owner of cereal bar brand Boka, has opened a £3m granola manufacturing facility in Winchester, Hampshire, adding domestic capacity for contract production in a category that has increasingly relied on external and, in some cases, non-UK manufacturing routes.
The new plant is a 12,500 sq ft site combining baking, packing, and warehousing. Bakeit says it is producing up to 220 tonnes of granola per month, and is set up to manufacture loose, crunchy, and clustered formats for branded customers. Finished product can be packed in formats including bag-in-box and bulk, with the business also planning to install a pouch filling line.
“British granola and cereal brands were struggling to find UK-based production, so there was an opportunity to build a manufacturing site that could support the growth of the category,” said Franco Beer, founder of Bakeit Food and Boka.
Bakeit traces the project from concept to operational output within the last year, with Beer stating that the business secured the factory space in March 2025 and began production in June 2025. Beyond granola, Bakeit says the site is equipped for new product development and manufacture across mueslis, cereals, flapjacks, oatmeal, and nut and seed snacks, and it has outlined plans to add baked bar production as part of its next phase.
The business currently employs 22 people across factory management, quality control, and product development roles, and says it is building a portfolio of UK cereal brands using the site for production. Bakeit has also indicated further expansion in 2026, including added warehousing and a wider gluten-free offer.
Category growth has tightened the search for reliable capacity. Kantar data cited by the company shows UK granola volumes rising 3.4% year on year to 41,700 tonnes for the 52 weeks to 29 September 2024, supporting investment cases for higher-throughput baking and packing lines with shorter lead times and the ability to run multiple recipes at scale.
For brands, the operational draw is less about a single format and more about flexibility across batching, bake profiles, inclusions handling, allergen management, and packing configuration, particularly where products move between retail, foodservice, and direct-to-consumer channels. Bakeit’s Winchester site is designed around those mixed requirements, with on-site warehousing intended to support stockholding and distribution planning alongside production scheduling.
