Perthshire-based Taylors Snacks cheers taking larger bite out of growing market after rebrand from Mackie’s Crisps

“As sales in Scotland have been so strong, we are confident there is demand for our product elsewhere.”

“We can’t think of another Scottish brand that has done quite the same before – keeping the product identical, but changing the name, brand and packaging,” says James Taylor, managing director at Taylors Snacks, the food manufacturer formerly known as Mackie’s Crisps. The Perthshire-based firm is celebrating its first full year in business in its current guise, and says it is poised and ready for further growth on the back of “significant” demand.

The business – part of Scotland’s food and drink industry worth £15 billion a year to the Scottish economy, with exports amounting to more than £8bn – was in its previous incarnation known as Mackie’s at Taypack, a joint venture founded in 2009 between the Taylor family and Aberdeenshire-based ice cream and chocolate producer Mackie’s of Scotland. The Taylor family bought out the latter’s share in 2022, with all crisps, popcorn, and “lentil waves” products rebranding as Taylor Snacks a year ago, and it has also acquired South Yorkshire Foods, hailing it as one of UK’s largest popcorn-makers.

The snacks-maker’s products, produced by the fourth-generation Taylor farm in Errol, are stocked in various Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Asda, the Co-op, Lidl, and Aldi stores. “Since launch up until the end of 2023, Taylors was worth £2.78 million in value sales in Scotland, making it the third-biggest premium crisps brand [north of the Border],” according to data from NielsonIQ, says the organisation.

It adds that during the festive season, Taylors became the second-largest brand in the Adult Premium Sharing Crisps category in Scotland after Walkers Sensations, part of the vast portfolio of PepsiCo. The US-headquartered food and drink behemoth – which also owns crisps brand Lay’s – recently reported 2024 first-quarter revenue of $18.3bn (£14.6bn), up from $17.8bn a year previously, with operating profit nudging up to $2.7bn from $2.6bn.

PepsiCo Inc was flagged as a major player in the global crisps industry in a report by Straits Research that calculated that the sector will expand to more than $42.7bn by 2031, from just under $30bn in 2022. It also said 94 per cent of people in the UK regularly consume crisps.

Taylors Snacks, which has 120 staff, highlights its export activity, with its core range (including Haggis and Cracked Black Pepper crisps) hitting shelves across Canada earlier this year. The firm’s crisps have also been included in Universal Yums UK snack boxes that are shipped around the world, and it furthermore points out that its “lentil waves” are now sold in school tuckshops in 26 out of the 27 Scottish local authorities as a lower salt and higher protein alternative to traditional crisps.

The Scottish Government has proposed a ban on the promotion of unhealthy foods and drinks (including those high in fat, sugar and salt), such as restricting multi-buys, unlimited refills or selling at locations such as at checkouts and front of store to help address the “high levels of excess weight, obesity and poor diet we know are contributing to worsening trends in Scotland’s health”.

Initiatives to boost the profile of the firm include unveiling a fleet of 15 "Taylors taxis" branded in various flavours. Picture: Mike Wilkinson.

Looking at the progress of Taylors Snacks, its MD James Taylor said: “Scotland has embraced Taylors as one of its new favourite snack brands, and we couldn’t be more delighted. Our ambitions remain high, and we are determined to offer our ranges to consumers around the rest of the UK. As sales in Scotland have been so strong, we are confident there is demand for our product elsewhere, and we look forward to expanding our operations to allow us to meet this.”

Meanwhile, fellow family-owned firm Mackie’s Scotland at the start of this year gave the scoop on its own performance since divesting its crisp operations, saying its performance was on an upward trajectory in both UK and international markets. The business, which produces all its ice cream using fresh milk and cream on its fifth-generation family dairy farm, Westertown, near Inverurie in Aberdeenshire, said its turnover rose 15 per cent year on year to reach £20.8m in its last financial year from £17.7m in the 2021 equivalent. The most recent sales total – the first time the business broke the £20m revenue threshold – came after its exports jumped by more than a quarter.

It also said that during the latest period, its UK market share in premium ice cream rose by 13 per cent, while its export sales grew by 27 per cent, and it sold more than 13.3 million litres of the product, enough to fill enough bathtubs to stretch more than 300 miles placed end to end. Additionally, sales of its chocolate rose by a third.

However, the company – which says it is the largest independently owned ice cream manufacturer in the UK – saw its overall costs increase by nearly a quarter, but said it absorbed as much of these as possible. “The brand's second-most popular honeycomb flavour now sits alongside flagship traditional across the UK in Sainsbury's, Waitrose and Morrisons. The company has its sights set on achieving more UK listings in the current financial year,” it stated.

James Taylor, MD at Taylors Snacks, says: 'Our ambitions remain high, and we are determined to offer our ranges to consumers around the rest of the UK.' Picture: Julie Howden.

Also commenting was managing director Stuart Common, who said: "We’re extremely proud of what we have accomplished together and look forward to achieving even greater success in the years to come.” That is a sentiment also put forward by James Taylor in December when he hailed Taylors Snacks “fast becoming a household name across Scotland, and we are seeing more and more people enjoying our snacks each month”. He added: “The future is looking bright for the brand… We look forward to listing more retail opportunities across Scotland and beyond in the coming months.”