After months of planning, building, sourcing machinery and coordinating different trades people we are now a matter of days away from moving in to our factory extension!
The new extension will see us add 36,000 square foot of production space to our existing factory including a new development kitchen and packing area and the additional capacity we require to achieve our target of doubling our production turnover over the next five years.
The additional 36,000 square foot will be used for additional manufacturing space, two new spiral freezers and a larger, modern development kitchen that we will need to fulfill customer briefs and take advantage of opportunities in the frozen sector.
Importantly, it gives us a state of the art manufacturing footprint required to increase production by 100% and is a real show of intent when talking with current and potential customers.
60 new staff are in the process of being recruited, trained and inducted for phase one of the expansion, which will see the first new line introduced just in time to manufacture the first of a number new products that are launching with Iceland and Lidl in March .
March will also see the return of Saturday production as we all work together to meet the demands of our key customers.
The Sales & New Product Development teams have been working really hard to bring on this new business and have come up with some fantastic lines that the retailers have loved and we enjoyed tasting too! Products to keep an eye out for are the premium Chicken, King Prawn and Chorizo Paella and the exotic Sri Lankan Chicken Curry.
We have developed our relationships with key customers and seen growth in export markets through Lidl as we are now exporting products to six additional European countries through them with a view of adding more in the coming months.
This is an exciting time for Laila’s Fine Foods and we are looking forward to working in a state of the art manufacturing environment which will bring the best out of us all