Kettle Foods Develops New Potato Intake Building in Norwick

British chips manufacturer Kettle Foods is to invest GBP2.7m at its Norwich site in the UK to develop a new potato intake building.

The new project will see the relocation and upgrade of Kettle Foods’ entire potato reception process to a new building on spare land adjacent to the existing factory, according to foodmanufacture.co.uk.

This will mean that there will be almost no interruption to current manufacturing, the company said.

The project will see the introduction of a new intake and grading building that includes a bulk trailer bay suitable for housing eight articulated potato trailers. New potato grading equipment will be installed to remove soil, stones and small potatoes, along with a barrel washing machine that cleans the potatoes delivered to site.

Sampling and lab services will be conducted in the new building by a team from the Kettle Growers Group. This is the biggest investment since the site was expanded in 2011. The company has been processing potatoes in Norwich for 30 years and for 25 years at the current site in Bowthorpe.

Building work is expected to start this summer and be completed within 12 months.

In February this year, Kettle Foods announced proposed changes to shift patterns and holiday entitlement for its workers to shore up profits dented by a price war with discount retailers.

The Bowthorpe company, within the group, said it believed that it would be “able to offer roles to all existing permanent employees” in the process, which will affect all production staff in its 470-strong workforce.

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