South Coast recruitment agency Rubicon People has been awarded a contract to meet flat-out production demand at Fudges, one of Britain’s largest independent biscuit makers.

Rubicon People will supply staff for the bakery at Stalbridge, near Blandford in North Dorset. Fudges counts customers as diverse as the Royal Household, Harrods, Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

So far Rubicon People, based in Poole, Dorset, has supplied 24 people. A reported unprecedented demand from retailers across the UK and as far afield as Sweden means Fudges is running three shifts over 24 hours, seven days a week.

Steve Fudge, managing director of the 160-strong firm Fudges, which has an £8m turnover, said: “We’re grateful to Rubicon People for providing a lifeline of labour. It is not always easy to recruit locally because of the peaks that inevitably come with our kind of work and the fact we are in a rural, isolated area.

“I’m a great believer in hiring ‘helpful hands’ – and they are exactly what we have been supplied with during unprecedented demand from national retailers for our products.”

Aggy Lublinska of Rubicon People said: “We’re only too happy to supply one of Britain’s largest independent biscuit makers and what is, undoubtedly, one of Dorset’s great business success stories.”