The Fletchers Group of Bakeries in the United Kingdom announced on January 7 that a £1 million expansion of cold storage facilities has been completed at its Kara foodservice unit in Manchester. The result is a doubling of capacity and enhanced environmental and technical efficiencies.
Kara, which specializes in the production of frozen buns, rolls and dough balls for the foodservice and convenience sectors, has converted an existing building into a new state-of-the-art coldstore in replacing a previous facility.
The new storage area allows greater internal efficiencies, improved operational handling, stock rotation and more accurate temperature control, with dispatches going to more than 300 wholesalers and end-users throughout the UK as well as to countries across Europe.
The Fletchers Group’s Kara project was part of a £12 million capital investment program launched in 2013, which includes a £4 million expansion of food manufacturing facilities at London-based Grain D’Or and the creation of a brand new £7 million production facility at the Fletchers site in Sheffield.
General Manager Jeff Dean commented: “Kara is consistently growing due to improving performance levels, innovative product development and the support the customer receives. Our facilities have got to match our exacting customer standards.
“Cold storage is an essential part of the production process and our previous facility had become outdated,” he continued. “This is more energy efficient, enables us to handle products in a more orderly way with less movement, and offers us greater efficiency in dispatching the product to third party distributors.
“This project has allowed us to double our storage capacity to now hold up to 1,000 pallets at any one time whilst retaining high levels of quality and food safety. The new facility complies with all the latest regulations and is far easier to maintain.”
Kara personnel worked with food factory construction specialist Clegg Construction on the nine-month project, minimizing disruption to existing storage and dispatch schedules.
