IAWS has its roots in the Irish agricultural industry but, over the last 10 years, has been remodelling itself as a producer of high-quality baked and convenience foods. This has primarily been achieved through takeovers with luxury bread maker Cuisine de France and U.S.-based cookie maker Otis Spunkmeyer, two notable recent acquisitions. In addition, the firm has been spinning off its agricultural operations, including a fertilizer and animal feed business.
These acquisitions, along with the growing demand for frozen and part-cooked bakery products, have allowed the firm to double its revenues over the past five years. Frozen baked products are gradually replacing their traditional equivalent. IAWS reports that the market is growing by around 4% a year in North America and Europe and at a faster rate in Asia and the Middle East. Frozen baked products allow supermarkets to offer consumers freshly baked products and create the ambience of a traditional bakery but only require a fraction of the manpower that producing baked goods from scratch requires.