FDBusiness.com

Grocery retailer Morrisons plans to become the UK’s largest fresh food manufacturer. New plans include a £21 million investment to increase the company’s capacity at its abattoir in Colne, Lancashire. Morrisons is the only retailer to buy livestock from the farm and process them at its abattoirs in Colne, Spalding, Lincolnshire and Turriff, Aberdeenshire.

The expansion at Colne will mean an extra 6,000 pigs will be processed at the site every week, raising capacity from 24,000 a week up to 31,000. Meat from the abattoir will be shipped into the newly acquired Morrisons fresh meat packing facility in Winsford, Cheshire, cooked meat production in Deeside, North Wales, and some pies and pastries produced at Morrisons’ Farmers Boy site in Bradford.

There will also be investments in fruit, vegetables and salad packing to add to the company’s recent investments in seafood and meat processing. Morrisons is to complete a £200 million investment in the expansion of its manufacturing food arm by 2013. This will mean it will buy more fresh food directly from farmers than its rivals.

“If market conditions continue, we will become theUK’s largest manufacturer of fresh food by 2015. This investment sets us apart from other retailers and means that we will be the biggest customer for UK farms,” explains Dalton Philips, chief executive of Morrisons, Britain’s fourth largest food retailer. “This will continue to build on our record of serving the freshest and best food that our farmers have to offer with minimal waste in the supply chain.”

By making more of its fresh products, Morrisons can control quality, cut out middlemen and deal directly with farmers. This means Morrisons buys and make use of whole crops of fruit and vegetables or whole animals. Vion UK is currently Britain’s biggest manufacturer of fresh food, with Morrisons the second largest.