‘Ultrasound cakes’ help fuel sales surge at London-listed Cake Box

A surge in demand for ‘ultrasound cake’ has helped drive record sales at one of the UK’s biggest bakeries.

Cake Box, which operates hundreds of stores across the UK, posted a 9.3 per cent rise in organic turnover to £45.9m for the year to end March as the firm set its sights on opening dozens more stores across the country.

An increase in online orders from food delivery apps has helped fuel growth, Cake Box said, as well as the rise of several new baking-themed online trends such as ultrasound cakes.

“It’s the latest trend,” said Cake Box chief executive Sukh Chamdal. “As soon as [mothers] have had their ultrasound and they find out what the baby’s sex is, they start doing ultrasound cakes, and that follows on from the trend of gender reveal cakes.”

Aside from ultrasound and gender reveal cakes, the firm’s new Dubai chocolate cake – which features moist chocolate cake layers combined with a pistachio-infused filling – has also proved wildly popular with customers.

“Within a few weeks we bought so much of the pistachios there was a shortage – our competitors couldn’t buy it,” Chamdal said.

Amabala acquisition fuels turnover

Cake Box posted total group sales of just under £60m, a rise of two-fifths, thanks to the acquisition of London-based sweet treats seller Ambala last year.

Pre-tax profit rose by 16.5 per cent to £6.9m for the year, while the company increased its final dividend by 5.9 per cent to 7.2p.

The firm opened 25 new Cake Box stores over the year as well as 12 new Ambala stores, and has plans to open as many as 35 new sites over the coming year. The business said it was “experimenting” with opening combined Cake Box-Ambala stores and would consider a wider rollout if successful.

Chamdal said the company has been able to weather the wider economic pressures facing consumers.

“Whenever there is a recession people consolidate their budget: they cut down on dry cleaning, they cut down on going to restaurants, they cut down on takeaways,” he said.

“But they don’t cut down on that special occasion spending and they might actually increase it by a couple of pounds.”

Cake Box shares rose 2.5 per cent to 195p. The stock is up by 5.2 per cent over the past year.