Our History

Where it all began

In 1987 David Haywood and Wayne Padgett started our journey in the small village of Wombwell, just outside Barnsley in South Yorkshire under the name of DW Foods.

The company was started with a modest investment of £15,000 in rented premises where we baked bread cakes and scones to sell on local market stalls. Wayne could be found hand rolling and cutting 100 scones a day, which is in contrast to the 60,000 per hour today!

Later that year we became a limited company and began trading under the name of Haywood & Padgett.

Off to the Supermarkets!

Things were progressing well for our company and we also started to sell with Wholesalers. We had secured business with Gateway Supermarkets who in 1990 sold a number of stores to ASDA. This led to a product listing and demand started to grow.

Although we had continually reinvested in the production facilities at our first site, it soon became apparent that we’d need a bigger bakery to supply the growing demand for our products.

Investing in The Bakery

In the mid 90’s Wayne and David took the decision to have a purpose built Bakery constructed on the Carlton Industrial Estate in Barnsley. This was a major investment but was needed to be able to bake sufficient scones for the growing base of Supermarkets who wanted our product.

1996 saw the opening of The Bakery and heralded the start of significant growth. There was an increase in staff but as always, we maintained the Family Bakery ethos that had got us to this point.

Going Global & Keeping Up With Demand

Demand for our delicious scones continued to grow as well as our customer base. As well as supplying the majority of the major retailers in the UK we also started to export to Europe and incredibly as far afield as Australia!

The strategic decision to continually reinvest in the business and people was maintained and led to the installation of a second oven and bespoke mixing machinery, which was required to meet the ever-increasing demand.

In 2008 David Haywood, decided to retire and the company became solely owned by the Padgett family, which continues to this day.

Continuing the Family Tradition

During 2009 Wayne’s daughter Becky joined the company to continue the Family tradition at The Bakery.

Becky learned the ropes whilst studying a business management course at university.

Later that year, Wayne and Becky took the opportunity to visit Guangzhou and exhibit Haywood & Padgett scones at the International Trade Fair.

Expanding Our Product Range

In 2012, Wayne’s daughter Becky, also being a keen baker herself, realised there was a gap in the market for a traditional, moist and crumbly scone that also had a long shelf life. She worked closely with our bakers to develop Becky’s Bakery, our colourful sub-brand which proved extremely popular with customers.

The range expanded from sultana scones to devon and cherry & sultana, which were a huge success and opened up more opportunities to export our products abroad.

Bakery Growth and New Ventures

Orders from retailers were increasing again, so we needed to expand the bakery to keep up with demand. An area of land adjacent to the bakery was purchased.

The expansion started in 2016 and aimed to double the size of the bakery and would incorporate new warehouse facilities and room for a new, larger oven.

Later that year there was a further development when we purchased a controlling interest in an exciting new company based in North Yorkshire named NibNibs, which produce a range of innovative savoury and sweet snacks. NibNibs moved into a bespoke separate unit on the Bakery premises.

A New Chapter

With our bakery expansion finally finished, we were able to bake a million scones per day. We have also recently begun exporting to America, Germany and Norway.

With a fantastic new product development team and a new bespoke development kitchen, we’ve now started to diversify our products and are entering new markets.

2021 saw the launch of our brilliant new home baking kit for scones and our long awaited Chocolate Scone to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the business.

All of this has entailed a lot of hard work and a commitment to staying true to our Traditional Family Bakery ethos.

Honest Indulgence Seekers

The beginning of 2022 saw us looking into new horizons. Whilst scones were always going to be a staple product for us, we began working on something that would keep up with market trends and capture the attention of customers seeking honest indulgence.

Our NPD team began looking into working on a low-calorie mini donut range in three flavours: double chocolate, chocolate orange and salted caramel. The project quickly evolved from an interesting, innovative idea into a reality, and very soon we began setting up a pilot plant at our bakery.

We went from being able to make a small number of doughnuts per day to being able to make around 15,000! We developed a new brand, Halos, and secured a listing in Asda at the beginning of 2023.

Heading to China!

During 2023 we had the opportunity to exhibit our products at the FHC International Food Show in Shanghai.

We took a range of products with us, including our traditional scones and some of our newer products such as steamed donuts and snacks from our sister brand, nibnibs.

There was an overwhelming amount of interest from the Chinese public into our traditional scones, showing us that there are clear opportunities for our products in the Chinese market.

Award Ceremonies, Exciting New Products & Our Big Rebrand

Throughout 2024, we continued to expand our horizons by continuing to exhibit globally and securing customers around the world.

As our scones began taking off across the pond, our employees back at the Haywood & Padgett Headquarters were busy delivering innovative products into the UK market too, including a Party Food range for M&S (Our Extra Mature Cheddar Cheese & Ham Mini Scones even caught the eye of Dawn French in the M&S Chrsitmas advert!) and developing new-to-market products that are set to launch in 2025. In and amongst all the excitement of 2024, we were named finalists at the prestigious Baking Industry Awards for ‘Bakery Manufacturer of the Year’.

Our exciting rebrands for Haywood & Padgett and our sister company, NibNibs, also came to fruition, with all-new packaging being developed behind the scenes and ready to hit supermarkets in 2025.