In June this year, you’ll be able to buy Great British Biscotti Company’s (Biscotti Co) biscuits from one of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains. This marks a major milestone for a business that, not too long ago, was only selling its products through artisan food markets in the New Forest area.
Vala has been working with Biscotti Co since early 2018, when the UK Challenger Fund (the predecessor to our current fund, the Vala EIS Portfolio) invested in the business. Over the last year, Biscotti Co has made great progress with building its brand, expanding its product range and increasing sales. At Vala, we’re excited to be supporting Paul and his team as they take the business to the next stage, ramping up production to meet growing demand.
In the video below, Biscotti Co’s Paul Rostand and Vala Capital’s Paddy Willis talk about how they are working together to build value in the business and the challenges they will face along the way.
Paul is a food industry veteran and a friend of Biscotti Co’s original founder. With a strong conviction that the company had potential to grow far beyond its modest beginnings, Paul joined the start-up in 2015 and subsequently became chief executive and the majority shareholder. In the last few years, Biscotti Co has twice outgrown its manufacturing premises and is now based in a 370 square-metre industrial unit near Christchurch in Dorset. The product range has grown to include a variety of different sweet and savoury flavours available in different types of packaging, ranging from single biscuit packs for the airline industry, through to 1kg boxes of loose biscuits for the food service industry.
