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The Business Magazine July 2024
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Hampshire healthy cereal bar maker opens own factory in Winchester

Boka bars being wrapped. Image Credit: Dave Dodge / Dave Dodge Photography
Boka bars being wrapped. Image Credit: Dave Dodge / Dave Dodge Photography
31 October 2024
Boka bars being wrapped. Image Credit: Dave Dodge / Dave Dodge Photography

Hampshire-based healthy cereal bar firm Boka Food has expanded and invested more than £2 million building its own 12,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in Winchester.

The new site can initially produce 21 million bars a year and is also 100% nut-free allowing Boka, which launched in 2016, to make the nut-free claim on its packaging.

The company has expanded its team by 17 to help run the factory.

The firm unexpectedly lost its main co-packer in 2022 and then struggled to find an operator that could produce the cold-pressed bars it requires.

"We couldn’t find a manufacturer that could produce our Boka bars to a high enough standard, so we decided we’d do it ourselves!" said Franco Beer, founder of BOKA Foods.

"Converting a warehouse into a fully functioning, SALSA-approved factory in the space of seven months, has been a real labour of love but we’re so proud of what we’ve achieved. Boka has already started work on obtaining BRC accreditation by July 2025," he added.

"We now control the whole manufacturing process which allows us to produce exceptional quality bars, as well as ramping up our innovation pipeline.

"It also gives us capacity to co-pack for other food brands.

"This is an area I am keen to explore as I know how difficult it is finding a manufacturer with the skills to be able to make consistently good quality bars at the right price."

The new site comes with the added capacity to add another manufacturing line if required.

Beer, who started the firm after he couldn't find healthy snacks for his children's lunchboxes, said there had been a "lag" in healthy snack food innovation but now that the UK Government has confirmed a ban on advertising less healthy food from October 2025, he expected to see more focus on producing HFSS compliant food products.

"With our new factory and keen focus on health and taste, Boka is well-placed to maximise this opportunity," he said.

Boka is the only cereal bar brand in the UK with front-of-pack green traffic lights as well as being 100% HFSS compliant.

Its bars (30g) are available in four flavours - apple and cinnamon, strawberry, choco mallow and Caramel.

They are stocked across foodservice operators including through Bidfood, Brakes and DDC Foods which supplies them into hospitals (staff and visitor dining), universities, schools, leisure clubs and corporate dining locations.


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Giles Gwinnett is a writer at The Business Magazine. He has been a journalist for more than 20 years and covered a vast array of topics at a range of media settings - in print and online. After his NCTJ newspaper training, he became a reporter in Hampshire before moving to a news agency in Gloucestershire. In recent years, he has been covering the financial markets along with company news for an investor-focused web portal. His many interests include politics, energy and the environment. He lives in Dorset.

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