3:14pm Thursday 9th September 2010
A LANCASHIRE bakery which started selling pies at the gates of factories and mills in the 1930s has scooped a top award at the industry’s equivalent of the Oscars.
Chorley-based Halls Food Group used 'flour power' to win the customer focus prize in the annual Baking Industry Awards.
The bakery’s achievements were acknowledged in front of 800 guests at London’s Park Lane Hilton on Wednesday as Joe Hall, the company’s chairman, was presented with the award by TV presenter Esther Rantzen.
The judges were impressed with how the third-generation family business, whose founder, former miner Joseph Hall, started selling bakery products at the gates of Chorley workplaces in 1933, had managed to retain its customer-focused approach.
Today, the company has four retail shops and four delivery vans operating in and around Chorley.
Halls is well known for its Chorley cakes and pies, particularly the butter pie, made from potatoes, carrots, onions and butter.
The company has an £800,000 turnover and employs 36 people.
Joe Hall, founder Joseph’s grandson, said: “We are pretty much doing the same thing we were in 1933. Our concept is to take food to time-hungry people when and where they want it.
“We just want to give people an easier way to get their food. Lunch hours are almost non-existent and ordinary retail outlets are crowded, so if it helps to deliver to customers and we’re constantly working at new ways to accommodate them.”
He added that the company had plans to attend more outside events in the coming year, as well as to increase its ability to sell to office and factory workers, particularly those on nightshifts, through online ordering.
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