Leeds Food Giant Dr Oetker Grows Sales and Profit

The Leeds-headquartered maker of Chicago Town and Ristorante pizzas lifted sales past £246m, helped by a new brand launch, despite pressure across the grocery market

Dr Oetker’s UK business, run from its headquarters in Leeds, has grown both sales and profits despite a difficult year for the grocery market. The frozen pizza and home-baking company, whose brands include Chicago Town and Ristorante, reported turnover of £246.6m for the year to the end of December 2025, up from £239.5m the year before. Pre-tax profit edged up to £37.2m from £36.5m. The growth, which the company put down in part to the launch of a new brand, keeps a major Leeds employer on a steady upward path.

Why This Matters For Leeds

Dr Oetker is one of the larger food manufacturers headquartered in Leeds, employing hundreds of people, so its steady growth is a good sign for the city’s manufacturing and food base. Growing sales and profits in a grocery market squeezed by cost inflation and competition from own-label and discounters is a solid result, and points to a resilient, well-run business. A dependable performer growing year after year is the kind of business a healthy local economy is built on.

How Dr Oetker Performed

The results continue a run of year-on-year growth: sales have risen from £233.4m in 2023 to £239.5m in 2024 and now £246.6m. The company credited part of the uplift to the launch of a new brand during the year, alongside its established pizza and baking ranges. The wider picture is a grocery market that has been anything but easy, with shoppers watching their spending and supermarkets pushing own-label products hard. In recent years the firm has leaned on efficiency rather than simply raising prices to protect its margins, including integrating its Leyland factory into the parent group’s international pizza production. That discipline has helped it keep profits rising even as costs have climbed. The business is the UK arm of the German Dr Oetker group, which was founded in 1891 and operates around the world.

“We’ve faced into a tough trading environment with a clear focus to keep bringing consumers the quality, value and innovation they expect from us.”

— John Brassington, Managing Director, Dr Oetker UK

A Steady Leeds Performer

Headquartered at Thorpe Park in east Leeds and employing close to 700 people in the UK, with its main manufacturing base at Leyland in Lancashire, the company has become a dependable part of the city’s business landscape. Its Leeds head office was itself bought by an investor in a multi-million-pound deal last year, a sign of the value tied up in the site. The firm sells frozen pizza, home-baking products and cake decorations to UK shoppers, and has grown steadily through a mix of brand investment and selective acquisitions over the years. Another year of rising sales and profits, achieved in a market where many food businesses are struggling to hold their ground, marks the company out as one of the steadier performers among Leeds’s larger manufacturers.