Contract packing and cold pressed oil producer Phoenix Group has expanded its food manufacturing operations with a new high-care food processing facility in Nottingham’s £6 million Southglade Food Park.
The dedicated high-care packing site allows Phoenix to provide a range of new outsourced services for its clients, including batch heating and boiling; emulsification; dry and wet ingredient blending, and high-shear blending.
Production began at the modern premises in January; with the 2,600 sq ft site joining the company’s existing 26,000 sq ft facilities already in operation.
An additional seven full-time roles will be created at the new site this year, adding to Phoenix’s 25 existing employees. The number of new jobs could rise to 30 by 2017.
The firm’s managing director, Ben Guy commented: “This venture marks a really exciting step for us as a business as we expand further into high care food manufacturing.
Having this additional space lets us offer a whole range of new services to our customers who are increasingly demanding more specialised production techniques from their suppliers that only high-care sites can deliver.
Guy continued: “We’ve got our first new customer in place already and have several others, existing and prospective, who are interested to find out what we can now do for them on top of our existing filling and contract packing services.
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“With the flexibility of two sites we know we can deliver this work by making the best use of both, as needed, to meet demand.”
Phoenix’s new site will be fully connected with its existing suite of bespoke apps – launched last year at a cost of £25,000 – which give production staff and customers real-time access to cloud-based quality management and stock control systems.
Phoenix reported a 70% rise in its turnover year-on-year for its financial year ending August 2015, up from £1m to £1.7m, and is forecasting further growth this year.
Growth Hub manager at Nottingham City Council, Simon Hall said: “Phoenix is achieving growth through innovation, which is a great example for other businesses to follow.
“We’re delighted that this expansion is taking place in Nottingham and that we’ve been able to play a part in making this happen.”
Southglade Food Park is a commercial development dedicated to specialist food production.
Following a recent £6m expansion – funded by Nottingham City Council and the European Regional Development Fund, there are 12 newly extended and refurbished units on site ranging from 900-4,000 sq ft in size.
