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Poultry Giant in £30m factory build
Poulty processor Faccenda Group claims investing £30m in additional production space at its site in Hortonwood Industrial Estate, Telford, has no implications for its Dudley operations, despite declared intentions to integrate them into Telford.
Through its Telford factory, the business portions and packs chicken for distribution to supermarkets or caterers. These are then dispatched to a Dudley plant for further processing and preperation, before returning to Telford for final packaging and delivery to commercial customers.
In its planning application submitted to Telford City Council, Faccenda stated: The purpose of the proposed factory extension is to integrate the activities carried out at Dudley into the Telford facility, this making Faccendas business more efficient and also more sustainable. To facilitate the consolidation of the Telford and Dudley plants, it is proposed to build a linked attached extension to the east of the existing factory. The extension will accommodate new cutting and portioning lines, chilled despatch, warehousing and new administration and staff facilities.
However, while conceding the wording could imply the company planned to close down production at Dudley, a company spokeswoman moved to reassure workers that facilities there would be maintained. The spokeswoman said: Faccenda intend to the use the space currently at Dudley for other activities...to grow the business in other areas. There will be no job losses and people currently employed at the Dudley site will be offered the opportunity to move to Telford if they should choose.
Telford City Council confirmed building work would start on the Telford extension, which is alongside and connected to, Faccenda Groups existing factory at Hortonwood, later this month.
The project follows the firms acquisition last year of turkey business Cranberry Foods.
Faccenda, which has its head office in Brackley, Northamptonshire, expects the new factory space will be completed within a year and fully operational by January 2015.
Faccenda Groups annual turnover is estimated to be about £300m and it employs more than 1,700 people across the UK. As well as the sites in Brackley, Telford and Dudley it has a farming base across the south and east of England.
