Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Shane McEntee T.D. today officially opened the Irish Dairy Board’s (IDB) new state of the art Adams Food Ingredients (AFI) manufacturing centre in Leek, Staffordshire.
The new 65,000 square foot facility, including an innovation centre, was completed on time and on budget at a cost of €12.7m (£11m). It marks the successful delivery of a €65m (£56m) capital development programme by the IDB in Britain over the past five years. As Ireland’s leading trading partner, maintaining a strong presence in the British market, comprising 62 million consumers is critical to driving exports and to meeting the growing demand from food manufacturers for high quality dairy based ingredients.
The new AFI plant is dedicated to developing customised dairy ingredient solutions, aimed at customers in Britain and export markets. It complements the IDB's cheese pre-packaging plant, also in Leek, which was commissioned in 2009 and is the largest pre-packer of cheese to the British retail sector.
This new dedicated production facility further strengthens AFI’s position in the British market as a leading powder blending specialist of dairy-based food formulations by:
- Doubling capacity to over 20,000 tonnes per annum
- Providing a purpose built innovation centre
- Applying the most advanced technology in specialist dairy applications
- Offering customers a wider range of formulations and customised premix solutions
- Giving greater flexibility to produce a range of packaging formats to meet specific customer needs
The innovation centre will enhance AFI’s ability to add value to dairy ingredients and will provide AFI with the platform to develop more advanced specialist applications in partnership with food manufacturers.
It will employ 50 people and replaces AFI’s existing facility in Prince Street, Leek. The new manufacturing centre is located on a site adjacent to Adams Foods Limited, IDB’s British consumer foods business. The total IDB complex comprises of six hectares.
In 2009, the IDB commissioned its new Adams Foods Limited cheese pre-packaging plant in Leek, which packs over 3.5 million packets of cheese a week and is the largest pre-packer of cheese to the British retail sector. The IDB has also invested in its Meadow Cheese ingredients plant in Ledbury, Herefordshire.
IDB Chairman, Vincent Buckley, stressed the strategic importance of Britain as a base from which to grow Irish dairy exports, “The commissioning of the AFI facilities provides a platform for adding value to Irish dairy exports in the years ahead and will allows us to lead the way in best in class customized ingredients solutions.”
IDB CEO, Kevin Lane said, “This investment provides the Irish dairy industry with further market opportunities to meet the growing demand from food manufacturers for high quality dairy ingredients. Our purpose built innovation centre allows us to work more closely with food manufacturers in developing specific formulations. This investment underpins our commitment in building routes to market for Irish dairy exports and is in line with our ingredients strategy of adding value. ”
Last month the IDB opened a new representative office in Algeria as a critical base from which to develop and extend the IDB’s footprint in North Africa – a market of almost 200 million consumers.
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Enquires| Liam O’Neill | Corporate Communications Manager | Tel 00 353 1 602 2268