Meat firm in jobs boost after £10M contract wins
Bawnbua Foods, formerly Eurostock Food Group, intends to plough funds into its facilities in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, and Wigan, Greater Manchester, after successfully diversifying its offer.
Bawnbua mainly supplied frozen meat products to the UK’s retail sector. However, following a strategic review of operations, the company moved into ready meals.
It now produces a range of chilled ready-to-cook meats, chilled slow cooked sous-vide meats and chilled value-added meat products for supermarket chains, food manufacturers and foodservice customers in the UK and Europe.
The latest development followed a £2M investment over the past three years. The company currently employs 250 people at the two facilities.
Turnover up 30%
Turnover has increased by around 30% since 2012, with 2017 already set to be a record year for the business, group md Gary White claimed.
Further growth would be accelerated by a focus on product innovation and new market development, White added.
“We have been in the meat business for over 30 years, and our focus has always been on innovation, service and quality.
“Our ongoing investment in our people and facilities has enabled us to respond to market demands and expand our portfolio to include a quality range of chilled, sous-vide and value-added meat products – which have been well received by our customers,” he said.
White explained that the £1M spent on a Product Innovation Centre and specialised production equipment at Lurgan in 2012 had enabled the company to become a “leading supplier” in the chilled meat sector.
‘Talented product innovation team’
At a glance
- £1M investment
- 25 new jobs
- £10M new contract wins
“With plans to expand our talented product innovation team this year and new business wins already confirmed, we are excited about developing new ranges that meet and exceed our customers’ expectations, and growing the Bawnbua Foods business worldwide,” he said.
Bawnbua Foods was recently awarded grade A++ accreditation for its food manufacturing practices by the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) Global Standard for Food Safety (Issue 7).
It claimed to be one of the few companies that was 100% compliant with the BRC’s highest possible recognition.
Meanwhile, Ireland-based Dawn Meats was rumoured to be close to a takeover of Northern Ireland meat firm Dunbia.
An unnamed industry expert told FoodManufacture.co.uk last month that a deal between the two firms was “quite likely”.
