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Just two years after building began, our Grimsby factory can
tell an inspirational success story of commitment and innovation.
“It was all very exciting and challenging,” recalled
Grimsby Site Operations Manager Bob Adams. “The old
factory in Humberstone Road had three production lines whereas
we now have six - so we have doubled production.
” Production was set in motion in November 2002 at the
same time as commissioning the factory and production lines.
“I know some factories that have taken up to two years
to do this but we did it in nine
months,” said Bob.
“By October 2003 we had reached our volume target, producing
400 tonnes a week of ready meals. Since then we haven’t
looked back. In 2002-2003 we were commissioning the factory
with efficiency at 40-45 per cent. It’s now 70-75 per
cent – that’s how much we’ve improved.
“It’s all credit to the people here – the
senior teams and the factory production staff have done a
marvelous job. It was a great team effort from everyone.”
Quite early on, two major customers requested audits which
all proved to be successful. Also, a European Food Safety
Inspection Service (EFSIS) audit noted only eight minor non-compliances.
Meantime, Project Manager Gary Jenkins was seeing through
the installation of a £5.1m investment of processing
machinery including the new Line One which produces 110 lasagne
meals a minute. “This was the UK’s first fully
automatic pasta line and posed the biggest challenge for us,”
he said. “But after much coaxing coupled with a lot
of effort from our staff and support from our suppliers we’ve
now got that running very efficiently.
” A brand new Line Four was also installed – a
sophisticated £1.5m, start-to-finish tray line handling
all the stages from cooking to packing. “The staff have
readily accepted all the new machinery and have been very
positive throughout,” said Gary.
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