A top bakery is ramping up production of Welsh Cakes in time for St David’s Day after clinching a major new deal.
The Village Bakery’s best-selling griddle cakes are currently sold in 300 Tesco supermarkets – and now they’re going to supply a total of 850 of their stores.
In addition, they’ve also just been launched in China where they’re selling like hot cakes.
At the moment, the family-run firm make a total of six and a half million Welsh Cakes in a year.
That’s the equivalent of filling the Millennium Stadium, now renamed the Principality Stadium, in Cardiff, 87 times over if you put one Welsh Cake on each of the 74,000 seats every time.
The traditional Welsh delicacy earned a royal seal of approval last year from the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall who officially opened their new Baking Academy and Innovation Centre, the first of its kind in the UK.
During the visit the Prince and the Duchess showed they were a dab hand at flipping the Welsh Cakes on the production line.
With March 1 looming, demand is soaring and production is being stepped up to make sure nobody is disappointed on the big day.
The Welsh Cakes are made using a traditional recipe that’s been only slightly adapted to suit modern production methods.
Village Bakery managing director Robin Jones said: “We decided to make the Welsh Cakes with an all butter recipe which is quite unique.
“I think that helps the flavour, and also there is extra salt in Welsh butter and I think that complements the Welsh Cake.
“We started off on a very small scale making a couple of hundred a day, and it’s just grown and grown over the years, and today we make six and half million a year.
“We were very chuffed to have Prince Charles here to try his hand at making Welsh Cakes and he did a great job.
“Now the Welsh Cakes are one of signature products and they’ve attracted other customers to look at other lines and we’ve never looked back.
“It’s such a humble product, but it’s so tasty and you can eat it any time. It’s very moreish.
“Luckily, lots of people agree and our Welsh Cakes are now sold across the world as far as Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai. We launched in China three weeks ago and I gather they’re proving very popular there too.
“Closer to home, the fact that they are now going to be sold in 800 Tesco stores is great news.
“It’s testament to the quality of the product and the effort the team at the Village Bakery put in every day to make the best product on the market.”
