A local businessman’s personal experience of the dangers caused by nut allergies has led to the creation of an exiting new business venture at Oakdale Business Park in the Caerphilly county borough.
Mike Woods, pictured, has two young children with peanut allergies and knows all too well that eating the wrong food can be potentially life threatening for some people.
Mike has a background in the baking profession, but recently decided to set up his own venture called ‘Just Love Food Company’. The new business will specialise in producing children’s celebration cakes that are nut-free so parents can rest assured that there is no risk.
Mike Woods, managing director of The Just Love Food Company, said: “Since my children were diagnosed with severe nut allergies in 2001, I have struggled to find suitable food products on the market dedicated to nut allergy sufferers. My wife and I found it particularly difficult when it came to sourcing birthday cakes as all supermarket birthday cakes carry warnings that make the products ‘not suitable for nut allergy sufferers’. Faced with this ongoing battle and equipped with over 20 years experience in the food industry, I decided last year that it was time to put it right. The Just Love Food Company has been set up to provide a food solution to nut allergy sufferers.”
The new business will be based in an impressive 12,500 sq ft unit at Oakdale Business Park, which has been designed and constructed to achieve a BREEAM rating of excellent.
Cllr Ron Davies, CCBC cabinet member for regeneration said, “We are delighted that Mike has selected one of our units at Oakdale Business Park as this is yet another success story for the site which has gone from strength to strength over recent years. It is unusual for a start-up company to take such a large premises, but this shows Mike has ambition and we will work with him to offer as much support as possible as his venture gets off the ground.”
Continued Mike: “We searched the breadth of Wales to find a suitable venue for our factory. One of our key requirements was securing a site that had never handled nuts. While we looked at some factories that were already kitted out for our requirements, we couldn’t guarantee that these sites had never handled nuts, so we decided to go for a unit that was only five years old and had previously been used for storage of non food items. The unit is currently being kitted out with new state-of-the-art equipment and in keeping with our nut-safe promise it’s not just our recipes that have no nuts, our staff, visitors and suppliers will not be permitted to bring nuts on site.”
It is anticipates that full production will begin at the site in April this year.
The 400 acre Oakdale Business Park site was formally the location of Oakdale Colliery and took six years and over £10 million to reclaim, creating one of the largest business plateaus in the South Wales Valleys. The Business Park has the potential to pump 5,000 jobs into the local economy to the tune of £100 million per year.
For more information about business units in the Caerphilly county borough contact CCBC on 01443 866221.
Go to the Just Love Food Company website for more information.
