Food company expands offering with £550,000 investment in cold storage

YORKSHIRE-BASED FOOD manufacturing business Holmesterne Foods has completed the first phase of a major investment programme to support its growth plans.

The £550,000 investment in new cold-storage facilities at its two manufacturing sites at Leeming Bar and Brompton-onSwale are designed to double the company’s frozen and chilled capacity.

Head of operations Shaun Bedford said: “The recent investment programme enables Holmesterne to respond to demand and service new customers while also controlling labour costs, increasing efficiencies and yields as well as reducing our overheads.

“We start on the implementation of the next capital investment phase this summer.”

Food manufacturing professional Mr Bedford took up his role at Holmesterne in late 2017.

He has overseen an investment programme which is designed to speed up production processes and output, reduce costs and increase yields.

The installation of four portable units from Blue Cube Portable Cold Stores has increased the blast-freezing capacity to 70 pallets. The initiative is part of the company’s ongoing drive to expand operations and support customers through increased efficiencies.

Holmesterne Foods, which employs about 150 staff, is a privately owned food manufacturing company based in Brompton-on-Swale, North Yorkshire. It supplies food products to partner customers in retail, manufacturing and food service which include the UK’s leading supermarkets. From a catering butchery base, the business has flourished by offering innovative value-added meat and vegetable products. Mr Bedford added that the company had also decided to change supplier to Blue Cube for chilling capacity as its offering meant the firm could add additional pallet spaces to its blastfreezing facility while reducing operating costs through the use of more efficient equipment.