The investment will enable 450 staff, who previously worked in temporary roles at the factory, to move to full-time contracts with the firm.
Gary Leslie, Moy Park’s director of operations – primary, said the bigger full-time workforce would ensure the business strengthened its processing capability at the site.
‘A vote of confidence’
“This investment is a vote of confidence in the British agriculture industry,” said Leslie.
“We believe this jobs creation will have a positive impact in Anwick and the surrounding area as well as enhancing service delivery for our customers in the UK retail sector and building on our success in the industry.
“Our Anwick site is one of the most efficient state of the art operations of its kind in the UK and Europe and we aim to create and maintain a workplace environment that is recognised by our employees and the community as being a great place to work.”
Leslie added that Moy Park worked closely with local communities, customers and suppliers to make a positive contribution. “As a major employer in the Lincolnshire area we are committed to looking after our employees through training opportunities and career development,” he said.
More than 1,500 people
The Anwick plant now employs more than 1,500 people.
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Meanwhile, although the poultry sector was not directly affected by the horsemeat crisis, the scandal did create the impetus to review the firm’s traceability procedures and practices, according to Ursula Lavery, Moy Park’s European technical director.
“I asked my team to put themselves into the shoes of the criminals [food fraudsters] and look at what could be targeted if they were trying to make money,” Lavery told our sister publication Food Manufacture in an exclusive interview recently.
Last month Julian Wild, head of the food group at law firm Rollits, said the poultry sector was one of the main beneficiaries of the horsemeat crisis.
Moy Park has grown from a small farming company, founded in 1943 in Moygashel, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to become a billion pound business operating in several countries.
The firm supplies about 25% of the total European chicken parent market. It is the UK's largest producer of organic and free range chicken and works with more than 800 poultry farmers in the UK and Ireland.
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