When a 40-person independent commits more than £10m to a new plant, it is a useful signal for any small business owner weighing up whether to expand: growth funded from real customer demand, not hype, is exactly the kind of scaling the rest of us can learn from.
According to Thames Valley Chamber, Newbury-based I.T.S. (International Taste Solutions) is building what it describes as one of the UK’s largest natural flavour manufacturing sites, investing more than £10m to lift its production capacity roughly 20-fold.
The new plant sits on an 8.2-acre industrial estate near Hungerford, west of Newbury, with quick access to the M4 corridor. Work will run over the next 12 to 18 months and will fully redevelop the existing factory on the site, plus extended office space, giving the firm scalable manufacturing for liquid and powdered natural extracts and flavour compounds.
I.T.S. supplies natural flavours to food and drink manufacturers across the UK and beyond. It says growth is currently running at around 35% year on year, which is what the extra capacity is designed to serve. Founder and owner Mike Bagshaw put it plainly: “My mantra has always been to be brave, scale big, have fun and stay independent.”
Why this matters to smaller firms
Two lessons stand out. First, I.T.S. is not gambling the whole business on the build. Its existing production and product development sites in Newbury will keep running as normal, and are themselves being extended, so day-to-day supply and innovation carry on while the new plant goes up. That staged approach is the same logic behind the way a Shropshire bakery opened a new production site without disrupting existing orders: keep the cash-generating operation live while the new capacity comes on stream.
Second, growth on this scale rarely comes from the current account alone. Kitting out a factory, fitting-out office space and buying production machinery are classic candidates for structured funding rather than a single lump sum. If you are planning a smaller version of the same move, it is worth understanding how asset finance spreads the cost of equipment over its working life, and how the wider lending market is shifting, from Metro Bank growing its small business lending to specialist platforms chasing the same borrowers.
Jobs and the local picture
The expansion also means hiring. I.T.S. says it will create new roles across Hungerford, Newbury, Marlborough and Swindon, which is a modest but real boost for the Thames Valley labour market and a reminder that manufacturing investment tends to pull in surrounding suppliers and services too.
Practical takeaway: if your own firm is growing at a rate that keeps outstripping capacity, treat that as a planning problem, not a nice problem. Map the demand, cost the new capacity honestly, keep the existing operation running while you build, and line up the right mix of finance before the pinch, not after it.
