Fruit juice and sauces firm Fruitapeel acquired the Llantrisant factory six months ago after it had gone into administration, but now expects turnover at the facility to hit between £12m and £14m this year.
Fruitapeel's other facility, in Liverpool, provides £10m of the firm's turnover and could see further investment; the company also has plans for a new orange juicing facility capable of producing 150,000l a day, but its final location is yet to be confirmed.
Fruitapeel md Terry Haigh put the higher than expected turnover down to growing demand in the fruit juice market:
"With the demise of SunJuice, suppliers here shrank. 15m litres of juice production has gone out of the UK and into EU suppliers. We are coming back into a marketplace that needed another home producer," he said.
Expansion into fish- and meat-based products
Meanwhile, Fruitapeel's plans to expand into packaging for fish- and meat-based products were still on the cards, said Haigh: "The only reason it hasn't happened yet is the customer is taking a little bit longer with the manufacture and production side. They already have the product range, so it is still on the cards."
Fruitapeel will launch a juice for children on September 12 through Iceland. Funjuice will initially be launched in one-litre containers, with 250ml-sized cartons following in January. Fruitapeel is also in talks with three other retailers and expects to expand its distribution network.
Since the demise of SunJuice in January 2009, Fruitapeel has restored 47 of the 100 jobs lost at the Llantrisant site, with 12 more to be added in the next eight weeks through the launch of Funjuice.