IN AN attempt to inject a little humour into a management report, Bells Food Group managing director Ronnie Miles decided to metaphorically stack up the number of steak pies the Shotts-based firm sold in December and see how far up Ben Nevis the pile of pies would reach.
He was astonished to discover the pies could have climbed the mountain 12 and a half times.
“Figures can be heavy going, but we’re producing good numbers, and it’s good to throw in fun statistics like this,” he says.
The comment is typical of Mr Miles, an affable man who over the course of a conversation effortlessly breaks the perhaps unfair stereotype of the stiff accountant.
When asked how the company is performing this summer, he replies: “When it’s hot we can see our sales dropping by the hour. When the weather’s bad we sell more. That’s one of the reasons we’re doing so well.”
There’s no doubting Mr Miles’s business credentials though. He’s been with the firm 27 years after “taking a job for six months” in the hope that the now chairman John Bell could teach him something.
Under Mr Miles’s leadership, Bells has grown sales to more than £16 million, and the business is currently £2.1m into a three-year £3.6m investment in its two bakeries.
“Pies and pastry might not be the sexiest business, but there are exciting times ahead,” says Mr Miles.
These times include fast growth in Bells’s commercial pastry business, which is now worth £2.3m. And further growth in its pies business – which is responsible for £12m of the total revenue.
“The growth in pastry is down to the fact our quality is good – currently we produce 60 tonnes of pastry.”
And if picturing that much pastry is proving a challenge, never fear. “Weight wise, that’s 100 minis a week. This time next year I’m hopeful it’ll be 200 minis.”
Bells’s slice of the pie market is currently more than 50 per cent, and a new range of deep-filled pies is set to extend that further, if Mr Miles gets his way.
This range consists of Mince and Onion, Chicken, and Steak and Haggis.
The latter provokes a question of its origins, which in turn elicits a laugh. The story goes that when Glasgow hosted the Commonwealth Games, Bells decided to have a bit of fun and create a Commonwealth Pie.
“We had to go through hoops to call it that – but we got there,” says Mr Miles, who expected the “distraction” to sell a few thousand.
“We sold £60,000 pounds’ worth of these pies in a matter of weeks. So we’ve taken that recipe, tweaked it slightly and relaunched it.”
The company proudly supplies all major supermarkets along with Aldi, Lidl and the independent sector – though Mr Miles concedes he has missed a few opportunities to break into the growing convenience sector because of an understandable focus on the supermarkets.
The company also retains its vans sales division, servicing 200 independent butchers.
“Bell’s is a third generation family bakers, and a lot of that business in the early days was through van sales, and that’s why we’ve still got vans on the road.”
Mr Miles said the company’s success is in part down to its service, and that each customers is as important as the next.
“Whether you’re a butcher buying two cases of pastry or a supermarket buying 15,000 cases a week, you still get reported on and if you’ve been shorted questions are asked. So yes, supermarkets drive volume and value but independent customers are still important to us.”
Such is the strength of Bell’s pie business, it is the second ranked pie maker in the UK, something Mr Miles said was “a fantastic achievement for a small company based in Shotts”.
“Pies in Scotland are worth £32m a year; it’s big business and it’s nice to have 53 per cent of that market but I’m quite greedy, I want more.”
By combining traditional recipes with investment in modern machinery, Mr Miles says Bells can get the quantity without reducing quality.
The company sells 500,000 pie shells each week and as recently rebranded its range. Expect a “multitude” of new products in the supermarket shortly.
“There’s everything from cake to pies to pastry launching, so let’s say there’s a few fraught people running about here just now.
“One of the reasons we’re winning a lot of business is through innovation,” he says. “We are good at what we do. And passionate. We’re making food, not bits of plastic to put in a mobile phone. The people have to be passionate and that’ reflected in the products.”
Mr Miles’s background is accountancy with a “little bit” of health and safety. “But importantly, I’m in charge of human resources,” he says. “I can produce you a balance sheet and cash flow, but what’s missing from those figures is the quality of people.”
Mr Miles takes this further by suggesting that whoever is charge of the numbers at a business should also be responsible for HR.
“As Bells has grown, a big part of that success is getting the right people,” he says. “If you get the right people I’m a big believer that the profitably and strong finances will follow.”
The absenteeism rate at Bells is 0.7 per cent, a statistic Mr Miles seems particularly proud of. He adds that staff turnover is at around seven per cent, with one worker having been with the business 45 years.
Most weekends Mr Miles can be found sitting on his boat at Dunstaffnage Marina near Oban. “That’s my escape. I’ve given up biking and martial arts. I’m 52, I’m too old,” he says.
Each year he takes to the helm for a two week cruise. “This season it is around Mull and Skye and the small islands around the west coast,” he says. There’s a pause, a smile. “And yes, I can eat a pie and sail a boat at the same time.”
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