FDBusiness.com

Meadow Foods, the UK’s largest independent dairy and leading supplier of milk and dairy ingredients to the food industry, is to invest £3.1 million at its site in Peterborough. The Peterborough factory is home to Meadow Foods’ Fresh Division where it processes and packs fresh creams, milks and cultured products for food manufacturers.

An initial £1.3 million investment will be spent to fully automate and double the cultured plant’s capacity, decreasing waste and increasing efficiency, with works due to be completed by the end of February 2013.

A further £1.8 million has been assigned to the site in the coming year, which will involve the installation of new mix tanks, inline standardisation and additional on-site storage. This investment will improve product quality and give Meadow Foods the capacity to produce enough packed cream to satisfy the entire UK market.

The ambitious investment programme follows a very successful year in 2012 which saw a 13% increase in the company’s turnover to £340.9 million and a 4.97% increase in operating profits to £9.51 million (for year ended 31 March 2012)

Simon Chantler, Executive Chairman at Meadow Foods, comments: “Our strong results have allowed us to embark on this exciting reinvestment project. By further improving our capacity and consistency of product we believe we will continue to grow the business and bring greater opportunity to both our farmers and customers alike.”

The Peterborough site was acquired by Meadow Foods in 2009. The processing facility occupies 2.5 acres and operates, 7 days a week, employing 57 people. Meadow Foods has two other factories in Chester and Yorkshire and the company’s products include cream, butter, butteroil, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate crumb and cultured products. The company, founded in 1992, now employs more than 250 people.