In June 2026, Simply Doughnuts welcomed a visit by pupils from Tauheedul Islam Girls’ High School and Sixth Form College in Blackburn. They made their trip as part of a series of “industry days,” which involve seeing how local manufacturers operate, and learning about the skills they most value.

12 pupils attended, together with two members of staff. During their visit, they heard about the origins of the business and how it had grown through continuous innovation; by meeting a previously unmet need for fresh doughnuts with very long shelf-lives. Senior managers explained the importance of adapting to meet changing customer demands, and how R&D has always played a central role in Simply Doughnuts’ work.

The visit also included a tour of the factory, where the girls learned about the importance of meeting quality and hygiene standards, and where they witnessed every stage of the manufacturing operation: from mixing the dough, through the various sheeting, cutting and proving stages, to frying, sugaring and packing. They even got involved on the production line, trying their hands at separating and holing the doughnuts.

“It was a pleasure to welcome the girls and their teachers,” said managing director Shiraz Master. “They were polite, lively and attentive, and they asked intelligent questions, which we were happy to answer. They even presented our team with a thank-you card and a box of chocolates, which was a very thoughtful touch.

“I don’t know where their individual careers will take them but if they show the same interest, energy and positive attitude that we saw from them today, I’m sure they’ll be very successful, whatever they choose to do.”

Simply Doughnuts has a long history of engaging with schools and community groups, and of helping younger people to get a foot on the career ladder. It has often hosted work experience placements and regularly creates opportunities for training, employment and professional development. It has previously won industry awards for team-building, diversity and inclusion.

With a series of food industry expos and conferences in the pipeline, we’ve been devoting a lot of time to forging new bonds with clients, suppliers, category buyers and food technology specialists. And naturally, of course, we’ve also been using the same events to renew old acquaintances.

On 13 April, our chair Mike Wilson and managing director Shiraz Master visited the 2026 Food and Drink Expo at the NEC in Birmingham. The event was well attended and featured an array of potential suppliers with interesting new solutions for manufacturing, packaging, energy-saving and more.

Soon afterwards, on 29 April we attended the Tesco Business Update event at Alexandra Palace in London. Here, senior leaders shared some of their plans for growth and for developing Tesco’s stakeholder partnerships. It provided some valuable insights but it was also a useful networking opportunity; a chance to see how other manufacturers are dealing with the challenges of innovation, cost control and net zero.

Next on our calendar will be PLMA’s World of Private Label exhibition, which will be held on the 19 and 20 May at RAI Amsterdam. The event is designed to help build connections between retailers and food manufacturers operating in categories including ambient, fresh, frozen, and dry foods. After that, we’ll be visiting another industry trade show: SIAL Paris, which will run from 17 to 21 October. It’s expected to attract around 8,000 exhibitors from more than 130 countries.

“We’ve become very much an international business,” said Mike Wilson, “so it makes complete sense for us to attend UK and international trade shows to build and strengthen our networks. Last year, we visited shows in the Gulf States, Turkey and Germany, amongst others, and we’ve always found it to be worthwhile. Retailers’ demands change all the time and there’s no better way of keeping pace than to visit these events and examine the latest solutions for ourselves.”

In December 2025, following a site inspection and audit by BRC Global Standards, Simply Doughnuts received a renewed ‘AA’ food safety rating.

We have maintained this top-rated grade since 2018. Before then, we held SALSA accreditation.

Founded in the UK, BRCGS notes that its “Global Food Safety Standard has set the benchmark for nearly 25 years… (and) is the most widely accepted food safety standard in the world.”

In response to the announcement, Simply Doughnuts chair Mike Wilson said: “This marks our eighth successive year of achieving the highest safety ratings from BRCGS. It’s been the result of intensive and continuous efforts by the whole team and I’m delighted that everyone’s hard work has been recognised in this way.

“The last 12 months have been particularly important from a quality-control point of view. We have introduced new technologies and monitoring processes, new training programmes and changes to our reporting systems. The results have included a sizeable reduction in our in-house waste scores and a notable improvement in manufacturing efficiency.”

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Note that an AA rating is the highest that can be awarded after a scheduled inspection by BRCGS. If it carries out an unannounced inspection, the highest awardable rating becomes AA+. Since 2018, Simply Doughnuts has earned either an AA or AA+ rating.

At Simply Doughnuts, we have always made the case that long shelf-lives yield distinct commercial advantages for retailers. This week, a new waste benchmarking exercise has proved it.

By giving retailers more time to sell before our products expire, we enable our customers to make dramatic reductions in pre-consumer food waste. That, in turn, means lower waste costs, fewer ‘reduced to clear’ offers, and improved profits.

That has always been our contention and key to our market appeal. Recently, however, we set out to quantify those benefits by carrying out a data-driven benchmarking exercise. By compiling retailer feedback from over the last three years, we’ve been able to compare the waste scores achieved by our doughnuts against the average scores achieved by the category as a whole. The results, we think, are both revealing and impressive.

In July 2025, WRAP published an update to its “UK Food Waste & Food Surplus – Key Facts” report. In section 4.2, it lists the proportions of waste by food group and notes that for bakery goods, the score is 11% by weight.

This is broadly consistent with the feedback we’ve had from retailers, who say that average waste in retail bakery departments can reach up to 12% by weight. And even the best-performing retailers struggle to keep bakery waste scores below 2% due to short shelf-lives and perishability. For the doughnuts category in particular, waste scores can average between 20% and 21%.

By contrast, our own pre-consumer waste scores, as reported back to us by retailers, have remained well below 1%. Since the start of the year, retailer feedback indicates an average of 0.61%. Our three-year average is just under 0.4%.

We can drill further into those figures. But first, we should note that not all pre-consumer food waste results from products expiring on the shelf. Sometimes, products must be discarded because, for example, their packaging has been damaged in transit or in-store. If we remove those causes from the waste scores for Simply Doughnuts, we see the following averages for 2023 to 2025. These are the scores that are directly affected by shelf-lives.

• Product reaching expiry: 0.25%
• Product approaching expiry, sold via ‘reduced to clear offers: 0.13%
• Total waste associated with expiry / shelf-life: 0.38%

As a reminder, these compare with an industry waste average of 21% for the doughnuts category in particular.

In summary, then, the latest figures show that:

• Our total waste scores are more than three times better than the top benchmark figure of 2%.
• They are more than 18 times better than the industry average for baked goods as a whole.
• They are over 30 times better than the category average for fresh doughnuts.

Given the pressure that retailers are facing to reduce costs, maintain margins and make progress towards net zero and UN Sustainable Development Goals*, choosing longer shelf-life products clearly makes sense.

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* Note: UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.1b has the stated aim of halving per capita food waste at the retail and consumer levels by 2030, and reducing food losses along production and supply chains.

We’re pleased to announce that Simply Doughnuts has been named as a finalist in two categories of the 2026 Food Manufacture Excellence Awards.

We have made the shortlist in:

• The Site Team of the Year category, and
• The Future Talent Award

Simply Doughnuts team members will be attending interviews with the judging panel in November. Then it’s just a matter of awaiting the results, which will be announced at the awards evening itself. That will take place on Thursday 5^th February at the London Hilton Bankside.

Good luck to everyone involved.

On 10th October, Insider Media named Simply Doughnuts as a finalist in the Northern International Trade Awards 2025. We are one of the contenders for the title of ‘International Company of the Year’ (in the sub-£10m category).

The announcement followed a written submission and a presentation to a panel of judges. Central to our nomination was our continued expansion in overseas markets – exports having almost tripled since 2022. Judges also asked about our record of continuous innovation, recent investments in quality and manufacturing capacity, and our latest new product development work.

The full list of finalists can be seen here. The winners will be announced at a special awards dinner on 4th December, at Hotel Football in Manchester.

In early September, the Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice contacted us, asking for a contribution to support its 2025 Dragon Boat Race. There, a team of staff and volunteers planned to take a stall and sell doughnuts as part of their fund-raising efforts.

Given the great value of the Hospice’s work, we were delighted to donate a supply of Classic Mini Ring Doughnuts, which were reportedly very well received.

The Dragon Boat Race was held at Pugneys Country Park in Wakefield. Open to competing teams of 16 paddlers each, it featured a series of 200m races in brightly decorated boats. Despite heavy rain, the event provided a memorable spectacle that also helped to raise funds and to boost awareness of the charity’s role and its important work.

The Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice operates across West Yorkshire, providing support for children with life-limiting conditions and, importantly, giving support to their families too. The charity has helped over a thousand people over the last year alone. This has included 107 children aged between 0 and 5; a further 74 aged 6 to 12; and 50 aged 13 or above.

More details of its work can be found in its Impact Report for 2024/25.

In it, the charity’s chief executive Gareth Pierce notes: “Forget Me Not is so much more than a place where children come to die. It’s where families come to live. From the moment they receive a life-shortening diagnosis for their child, we’re there – helping them make the most of every moment.”

The Hospice receives excellent reviews from those whom it supports, but public funding sources are very limited, so it is highly reliant on donations from individuals and businesses.

Gareth Pierce explains: “We’re incredibly proud of the difference we’ve made – but the reality is, we still receive only a small portion of our funding from the government… That’s why we continue to rely on the support of our community – through monthly giving, corporate partnerships, fundraising or gifts in wills.”

Anyone wishing to support the organisation’s work can find out more here.

On 23 October, the manufacturers’ organisation Make UK named Simply Doughnuts as the runner up in two categories of its annual Manufacturing Awards.

We had actually been shortlisted in three categories of the 2025 regional awards programme:

1. Developing Future Talent
2. Business Growth and Strategy
3. The Manufacturing Impact Award

At the the North West regional dinner, which was held at Crow Wood Hotel & Spa Resort in Burnley, we were declared the runner up in both the ‘Developing Future Talent’ and the ‘Business Growth and Strategy’ categories.

Ahead of the finals, the organisers wrote to all the shortlisted candidates, stating:

“Our judges have scoured hundreds of brilliant applications… Competition to make the next stage has been fierce, and the quality of the entries has been higher than ever.”

Pictured is our chair, Mike Wilson, collecting one of the two runners-up trophies.

Unusually for us, this was the same night as the finals of the Baking Industry Awards in London, where we were short-listed in the ‘Team of the Year’ category.

In the 2024 Make UK Awards, we were a runner up in the Innovation category.

More details of the 2025 event can be found on the Make UK awards website.

On 8 August, the hosts of the Baking Industry Awards named Simply Doughnuts as a finalist in the ‘Team of the Year’ category.

As a past winner of this award (2021) we are looking forward to attending the finals on 23 October at the Royal Lancaster in London.

Our shortlisting follows a judges’ visit to our factory last month, where we were able to show the panel members our processes, and explain relevant issues such as our quality assurance systems, industry accreditations and staff development programme.

The Baking Industry Awards are in their 38th year and they exist to celebrate excellence, innovation, and dedication across the industry.

The standard of entries has reportedly been particularly high this year. Addressing the newly announced finalists, the organisers wrote:

“Congratulations on being shortlisted as a finalist in the 2025 Baking Industry Awards. Out of a highly competitive field of entries, you have risen to the top through our rigorous judging process and now you’re officially one of the best in British baking!

“This is no small feat, as our expert judges reviewed hundreds of entries in one of the most competitive years yet. Your hard work, creativity, and passion really stood out!”