Thomas Auld & Sons Limited
Company History
A Background to the Largest Independent Family Bakers in Scotland
About 1900, Thomas Auld started up business along with his Aunt, a Mrs. Anderson. "Auld and Andersons" was a working-men's restaurant in the Brymner Street area at Customhouse Quay, Greenock. Initially they bought in bakery goods for sale in their Restaurant/Tea room but then they thought they could provide something different and a better quality than was available at the time if they could bake their own.
A few years later, around 1908, Thomas Auld opened his first bakery and shop at "Highland Close".
Highland Close no longer exists but would be in the vicinity of the Greenock Central Station/Cathcart Street today.
Thomas had four of a family, two sons George and Tommy and two daughters Janet and Jean.
His sons George and Tommy later worked in the business and it grew slowly in size opening a few shops.
In 1950 Thomas Auld's grandson: the son of his daughter Janet, took over the running of the business.
Today over 50 years later Mr Ian Marr still plays a part in the company as a Non-Executive Director and his son, Alan Marr, Thomas Auld's great grandson is the company's Chief Executive.
In 1951,the Company decided to abandon the three old bakeries beside the shops in different parts of Greenock and build a large central bakery in Brisbane Street. The old bakeries were in Mount Pleasant Street, Ann Street and Brisbane Street. Auld's Head Office and retail bakery has considerably expanded since, but remains on this site. The shop chain then grew steadily from the three original units to the 44 branches operated today In the mid Sixties Thomas Auld & Sons Limited took over a Lanarkshire bakery business Jean Frames.
This business had a number of retail shops in Lanarkshire and a bakery in Bothwell Road, Hamilton.
Initially the Hamilton bakery supplied the Lanarkshire shops. However, it was preferred that all retail production should come from one bakery, this helps keep the same standards and quality throughout the shops and allows the economies involved in larger scale production, hence the Lanarkshire shops are now supplied from the Greenock bakery. Changes were happening in the food industry. Freezers were becoming more common place, both in the home and in the hotel and catering industries. It was realised that similar skills were needed to produce frozen cakes as to produce fresh ones. Aulds had a bakery in Hamilton which was under-utilised, so the Company then in 1967 entered the frozen food market with a new subsidiary company, Auld's (Food) Limited. Auld's (Food) produces a wide range of quality sweets and desserts which are sold to national wholesalers who in turn sell them to the hotel and catering markets under their own brand names. The gateaux are distributed nationally.
Both Greenock and Hamilton production facilities saw considerable expansion over the years.
However, increased demand from existing customers, new markets for existing lines and new opportunities in an ever changing food market meant that the capacity of the two existing sites would not meet future requirements.
In 1992, Auld's Food purchased a factory unit at Inchinnan Business Park close to Glasgow Airport. The factory was totally refurbished to provide a modern temperature controlled facility . Already supplying national supermarket chains, the Inchinnan factory enables the company to expand into further areas of the national and international markets.
By Autumn 1994, a state-of-the-art factory within a factory was created to allow the company to make sandwiches to the very high standards demanded by both Aulds and the large multiples. This facility has been described as "more clinical than an operating theatre", with its full temperature controls and air conditioning.
The quality of this modern facility then lead to it being the preferred manufacturing site for many of Aulds major customers which increased the business at Inchinnan but resulted in the eventual closure of the Hamilton facility in 2002.
Inchinnan then expanded its production and the Aulds Group currently employ over 900 people. The retail bakery remains at Greenock from which the 43 shops are provided with daily deliveries of day-fresh bakery lines to West Central Scotland. Greenock and Inchinnan bakeries both have EFSIS accreditation.
On the 10th October 2005 a fire completely destroyed the Inchinnan Factory.
With Christmas fast approaching this was a devasting blow to Aulds at probably the worst possible time of year.Quickly, various temporary off-site production facilities were sourced to maintain some of Aulds production lines while a longer term solution was sought.
On the 14th November 2005 on ground adjacent to the original factory Aulds opened a new temporary home, built by specialists in the construction of temporary buildings this was constructed in less than 5 weeks.
On Friday 11th May 2007 Aulds took possesion of the newly constructed Inhinnan factory. Located on the site of the original building this modern state of the art factory has been designed to provide both a pleasant and most efficient working environment.The building has been designed to include water harvesting and best use of natural light.
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The retail units span a large geographical area. Through Ayrshire, they roughly follow the River Clyde to its source and beyond with shops throughout Gourock, Greenock and Port Glasgow, widening out into Bridge of Weir, Johnstone, Linwood, Paisley, and Renfrew, the new Braehead Centre and over the river to Dumbarton, Bearsden and into Glasgow City Centre, out to Glasgow's outskirts at Bishopbriggs then towards Hamilton,Rutherglen,East Kilbride Motherwell, Wishaw,Airdrie |
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Larkhall and down the Clyde Valley to Lanark and onto Livingston and Cumbernauld.
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Over thirty of the retail shops combine with coffee shops offering customers the choice of sitting in or carrying out the quality bakery goods. Many of our bakery items are produced to the same "Auld fashioned" recipes of nearly 100 years ago. Over 150 items are made fresh daily. Aulds have built a name for quality, buying only the best ingredients. Modern equipment and machinery are used where they help maintain consistency but in many areas traditional baking skills are used, in order that the products look as good as they taste.
In the shops, as in the bakery, hygiene is of paramount importance. Gone are the old fashioned wooden counters of the last century. These have been replaced with modern easily cleaned materials. Tiled floors, panelled walls, and modern counters not only look good but they ensure the fresh bakery goods are held at the correct temperatures to maintain their quality. The bakery trade is an unusual one when compared to other businesses. In most industries one would either manufacture items, wholesale products, distribute goods, retail merchandise or provide a service. In the baking trade, bakers have to do all these things and with a day-fresh product too! Another retailer could sell a dress tomorrow if it was not sold today, but the baker can't sell a yesterday's roll"!
All this makes the industry a challenging and interesting one.