From humble beginnings as a small operation supplying local grocery stores, Bradford’s Regal Foods has transformed itself into an international company over the last 18 years.

It has been lauded in trade bible The Grocer for the quality of its cakes, it has been featured in the Financial Times fastest growing 1,000 companies in Europe, it delivers in 40 countries around the world, and it supplies many of the big name food retailers, including Tesco, Morrisons, the Co-op, and Somerfield.

Now the firm is planning a major expansion of its warehouse and manufacturing plant, creating 40-50 new jobs in the city in the process.

The firm was founded in 2001 with one warehouse to supply to a number of local grocery stores.

Sales director Waqar Younis says his father Younis Chaudry and uncles Faz and Ali Chaudry set up the business when they saw a gap in the market.

“It started from humble beginnings, with my father and my uncles supplying small grocery stores. We started to expand out and realised there was a market there.

“There was a growing need for a business that could do halal products and went from there. We launched our second brand Yorkshire Bakery, and it’s just been going onwards and upwards.”

Regal Food Products Group is now a multi-million pounds global business, and is highly regarded in the trade and is becoming a household name for shoppers.

It produces many varieties of bakery products in addition to the traditional Eastern range, and has also diversified with a complementary range of widespread products including pickles and preserves, savouries, spices, sweets, and nuts.

Waqar said the company, which employs up to 200 people, has now reached the stage where it has to expand.

“It’s got to a point where we physically have no more space left to do what we need to do. Its restricting our growth, so we are extending out and plans have been approved to expand our manufacturing facility and our warehouse,” he said.

“We are going to create another 40-50 jobs in Bradford. We are doing what we can for the local community.”

Work on the project is due to start the back end of January and is expected to take about four months.

He stressed the family ethos of the business – and the fact that family includes the community.

“The main factor in our growth stems from my family. My father and my uncles are the backbone of the business. They are my role models in life and in the business,” said Waqar.

“The community has got to benefit by having the business here. We want this to be a family business to be proud of.

“When we say family, we mean the community, we mean the people that work here, we mean our suppliers, our customers. We are all one big family.

“We could have gone somewhere else, but we wanted to stay with Bradford, and it was important for us to stay here. We all want to highlight the fact that Bradford has so much to offer and so much talent.”

The process to get the firm where it is now has been far from easy, said Waqar.

“It’s been a long journey,” he said.

“We started with nothing. I joined in 2008, and had to work my way up from the bottom. We changed our structure and our philosophy slightly, and we just cracked on from there. We started to do a lot more products like drinks and popcorn, and our range has now grown to about 300 products.”

He said his dad, who had 30 years of experience in the food industry when Regal was founded, and his uncles remain an integral part of the business.

“I’m very proud of what they achieved. A lot of the core principles I use in my mind and my business stem from those three guys. Even to this day they are part of the board and involved in the big decisions,” he said.

“It’s experience you can’t buy and I’m blessed to have it.”

Waqar said it was important that people continued to big up Bradford and encourage those outside the city to recognise its strengths and talents.

“We have so many fantastic businesses in Bradford that have won so many fantastic awards that are doing something that is so revolutionary. We don’t always emphasise that,” he said.

“We’ve got two or three of the best restaurant chains in the UK. In terms of Bradford there’s a lot of talent here.

 “We should be jumping up and down about Bradford. We should be talking about how great Bradford is. It’s such a fantastic place to be.

“We really believe in the Bradford community, and we believe it’s important to give something back. That’s why we get involved with lots of initiatives to do that, including providing food for the homeless and lots of charitable work.”