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CH Guenther & Son has opened a new Centre of Excellence at its Coventry bakery, creating a dedicated hub for bakery innovation and customer collaboration as demand grows for more premium and differentiated products across the UK and Europe.
The 172-square-metre facility is designed to bring foodservice operators, retailers and quick service restaurant customers together with CHG’s bakery, culinary, commercial and technical teams to develop and test new products from initial concept through to commercial manufacture.
The purpose-built Centre combines a commercial-scale pilot bakery with a customer demonstration kitchen, sensory evaluation facilities, an innovation suite and dedicated collaboration areas. The setup is intended to give customers a single location in which to develop, demonstrate, evaluate and refine new bakery concepts before moving them into full-scale production.
According to CHG, the facility will support growing demand for premium bakery products, including the rapidly expanding potato bun format, while also responding to broader shifts in consumer preferences.
Customers are increasingly seeking products with premium and artisan-inspired characteristics, alongside free-from options, smaller portion sizes and protein-rich formulations. The new Centre is designed to allow these concepts to be developed and tested in a controlled environment before being validated for commercial manufacture.
Its location within CHG’s flagship Coventry manufacturing site is also intended to shorten the transition between product development and production. The Coventry bakery, which opened in 2023 following a £38 million investment, currently produces around 72,000 buns per hour.
The Centre represents the latest stage of a wider investment programme by CHG and its partners in the company’s UK manufacturing infrastructure. The business has continued to invest across its three UK sites and its wider manufacturing network, with the aim of increasing production flexibility and supporting faster product development.
Paul Tripp, European vice president and managing director at CHG, said: “CHG’s new Centre of Excellence provides our customers with partnership in innovation and developmental testing, ensuring ideas can move seamlessly from concept to commercial production. This investment is part of CHG’s long-term strategy to strengthen our growing relationships with leading food service brands through innovation, operational excellence and continued investment in our UK and EU manufacturing.”
The company said the facility is intended to strengthen its position as a development partner for foodservice and retail customers, rather than simply a manufacturer. By bringing product development, sensory testing and pilot-scale production together, CHG aims to reduce development times and help customers bring new menu and bakery concepts to market more quickly.
The opening also forms part of the company’s longer-term strategy for growth in the Pan-European market. CHG said the UK and Europe remain strategically important markets and that increased innovation capability will support future manufacturing investment, new customer partnerships and expansion into additional premium bakery categories.
