15 MILLION extra Tunnock’s teacakes have been sold in the last year – thanks to Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games opening ceremony.
The ceremony, which featured giant dancing Tunnock’s teacakes, is being credited for boosting sales worldwide.
New figures released by the company show that over 12 months since the game’s opening ceremony 15 million extra teacakes have been sold.
Ironically, at 106 calories each, that means an extra 1.6 billion calories consumed by Tunnocks customers as a result of a “healthy event”.
The ceremony has also been credited for the company recording a record turnover of £50m.
To deal with the boost in sales, Tunnock’s have had to make hasty changes to their production process, bringing in different shift patterns and new machines.
Guided tours of the company’s Uddingston factory are also fully booked until 2017.
Fergus Loudon, Tunnock’s operating director, said: “The Games organisers contacted me last February and asked if we would be happy with them using our brand, but I had no idea what they were planning.
“When we sat down to watch the opening ceremony we were absolutely flabbergasted by what we saw.
“After that the phones started ringing off the hook. There was an enormous worldwide spike in the demand for teacakes.”
“The Commonwealth Games were absolutely phenomenal for us. Somebody said to me recently:’Did Tunnock’s support the Games or did the Games support Tunnock’s?’”
The opening ceremony, hosted at Celtic Park, was watched by 10 million in the UK, with an estimated global audience of 1 billion.
Tunnock’s was founded in 1890 by Thomas Tunnock, who paid £80 for a South Lanarkshire premises for his bakery.
The business launched its range of teacakes, caramel wafers and snowballs in the 1950s, and now exports millions of biscuits to the Middle East, North America, Australia, Japan, Africa and the Carribbean.
