2 Sisters Food Group has announced that it will invest £45 million in an upgrade to its poultry processing plant in Scunthorpe.
New technology will include the introduction of robotic cells, which will make the process fully automated, increasing the number of birds processed to 2.4 million weekly.
The investment will secure 1600 jobs at the plant and will improve animal welfare, product quality and presentation.
The upgrading of the animal welfare site follows a £10 million investment in a programme to help reduce campylobacter in poultry, much to the applaud of the Food Standards Agency.
Dan Whillock, 2 Sisters Scunthorpe general manager, added: “The whole team is delighted that Scunthorpe has been selected for such a major investment, the biggest since the site was built in 1988.
“It has been a huge boost to the workforce and is just reward for the hard work and dedication of our great people over the last 28 years. The project has taken many months of planning and our goal has always been to build a truly world class facility, using the very latest technology to ensure the highest standards of animal welfare, bio security and product quality for our customers.”
The Scunthorpe site has been open since 1988, which made it the largest operation of its kind in Europe, at the time, at over 800,000 square feet, processing 900,00 birds a week. The company now processes 1.8 million birds weekly, for a number of major retailers.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Aoife Lawless. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
