Alpro’s biggest challenges during £28.5M expansion

18-Mar-2015 - Last updated on 28-Sep-2021 at 09:19 GMT

Managing growing market share and multiple suppliers were the biggest challenges Alpro faced when constructing its new £28.5M production facility at its existing Burton Latimer site, near Kettering.

That’s according to the plant-based product manufacturer’s factory director Metin Fevzi-Hunt in this exclusive video for FoodManufacture.co.uk about the site’s 10-month construction.

“We were using so many different suppliers – from building through to the different types of equipment through to utilities,” he said.

“Trying to keep that many suppliers on track the whole time was probably one of the most difficult things we had to do. Alpro’s market share is growing so fast that we had to change our plans a lot during the process.”

Watch this video to find out how Alpro overcame the challenges it faced.

UK leader

The firm is the UK leader in non-dairy plant-based products, with 65% branded market share, Fevzi-Hunt claimed.

Alpro’s UK year-on-year brand sales were up 25%, he added.

The new site doubled the firm’s capacity from 75M litres per year to 150M litres and created 50 new jobs.

Fevzi-Hunt said that taking on the 50 new recruits was “relatively easy” as there was a good selection of high-calibre food and drink production workers in the UK.

Fevzi-Hunt also confirmed that the site could be extended as its market share grew.