Mackie's Crisps doubles production to 500,000 packs a week

Mackie's Crisps, Scotland's leading crisp brand, has double production within a year since the return of a company veteran as general manager.

After taking a two-year career break to explore new avenues, Emma Foster returned to the fourth-generation family brand in 2020 to help rescale and redirect the company.

Foster, who has over 30 years of experience under her belt, restructured production runs and shift patterns within the year, resulting in better work life balance, reduced on site waste.

The productivity increased by 20 per cent, with 420kg of potatoes through the fryer an hour compared to 350kg/h in the previous year, and packs produced have since doubled with an average rise from 275,000 packs produced per week to over 500,000.

“We are now producing just over 500,000 packs per week between crisps and healthy snacks which is a tribute to this team embracing change and really giving 100 per cent effort day in day out,” Foster said.

Emma Foster

“When I returned to Mackie’s I sat down with the teams and took the time to understand everyone’s roles and explain why I was here. It was incredibly useful as it helped set new targets but also filter out what needed changing.”

This led to a change in shift pattern from two x 12 hour shifts Monday to Thursday to three x eight hour shifts starting Sunday to Friday.

“The restructuring was needed to manage the increase in orders but also to give everyone a significantly healthier work life balance. It also helped reduce overtime and I am pleased to say the team is still maintaining a 20 per cent increase in productivity,” she added.

Alongside the rise in production, Foster has helped cut down on site waste from 10 per cent to less than 3 per cent by monitoring waste from every production run and investing in new packaging with altered dimensions.

Her one-year anniversary of returning to the factory has been marked with growing demands as a result of over 27 new product launches: 13 in crisp pack sizes including 3 new flavours and 14 in healthy popped snacks.

“Returning to the Mackie’s team has been like coming home, even though a lot has changed – I feel like I am back where I’m supposed to be,” she said. “The team is always open to new ideas and there is always something exciting going on whether that be product launches or infrastructure developments. It’s like a breath of fresh air.”

Starting out with the Taylor family (Taypack Potatoes Ltd.) in 1999 as a production manager, Foster has seen the Taylor family business transform over the years, from growing potatoes, peas, fruit and cereals to building a state-of-the-art factory and becoming a nationally recognised snack.

“Some of the biggest changes since returning has been the new product range, consumer base, and the introduction of new healthier snacks,” she said.

“Throughout the last year there has been a massive jump in production with a real focus to tap into specific markets through listening and developing products that consumers want to see.”