The 2 Sisters Food Group, one of the United Kingdom’s largest food producers, has announced that it is investing £55 million in its Meal Solutions Division to support further growth, create state of the art manufacturing facilities and secure jobs.
Wholly focused on the private label sector, the unit predominantly produces ready meals, soups and sauces for the Marks & Spencer retail chain at four factories: Pennine Foods in Sheffield, Rogerstone in South Wales, Carlisle and Grimsby. The majority of the investment will be used to completely rebuild Pennine Foods, with the remainder being allocated to refurbish and expand capacity at both Rogerstone and Carlisle.
Pennine is a purpose-built facility, originally established in 1986, which has now reached full capacity. A £38 million rebuild will develop best-in-class commercial and operational processes to support continued innovation, expand capacity and drive profitability. The strengthened production platform will enable 2 Sisters to continue to grow its position as the market leader in ready meals production in the UK.
To avoid disruption for customers, work at Pennine will be phased with some capacity transferring to both Rogerstone and Carlisle from April 2016. The transferred capacity will remain at those sites, creating the opportunity for new ranges to be produced at Pennine once work is completed at the end of 2017.
“Our investment is fully supported and welcomed by our customers,” said Simon Wookey, divisional managing director at 2 Sisters Food Group. “We continue to see an opportunity to drive further market share growth in the ready meal sector supported by a new state of the art factory in Sheffield.”
He continued: “On average the chilled ready meals sector is growing at roughly 3% per annum, and our chilled division is outpacing that growth. It will also create significant opportunities to improve the way we operate as a business whilst also helping to safeguard and potentially create jobs in all our factories.”
The Birmingham, England-headquartered company, owned by Boparan Holdings, rang up sales of £3.419 billion in 2014. Starting out as a poultry cutting and packing operation in West Bromwich in 1993, it has grown significantly through acquisition and today operates from 36 manufacturing sites in the UK, Ireland, Holland and Poland. Among the major acquisitions was the Holland-headquartered Storteboom Group chicken production business in 2010, and the UK arm of Dutch poultry and red meat specialist Vion in 2013.
The Frozen Division of 2 Sisters produces pizza, flatbread, vegetables, pies, fish and other items under Goodfella’s, Delizia, Holland’s Pies, McDougalls Pies, Matthew Walker, Donegal Catch and Green Isle brand names. It supplies all major retailers in Britain, with Holland’s Pies also selling product via fish and chip shops and sports stadiums including Manchester City FC and Manchester United FC.
