Morrisons opens £1.4m food manufacturing innovation centre

The Greenside Innovation Centre cost £1.4m to build and was officially opened this month (April 2024) with the unveiling of a plaque by the Leader of Bradford Council, Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe and Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin.

The centre features a development and showcase kitchen, which has been designed to support the growth of Greenside and Myton Food Group (Morrisons’ wider manufacturing division).

The innovation centre will also allow Morrisons food manufacturing specialists to showcase new product development (NPD) to prospective customers.

The Greenside site is the UK’s largest fresh food factory and produces bacon, quiches, pies, sausages, gammon, cooked meats and packed cheese. It has received significant investment in the past year, with an additional £6.6m being used in cheese automation technology, while a further £7m will be invested in new sausage lines later this year.

Morrisons Greenside is a 400,000 square feet manufacturing site that employs 1,400 members of staff team. It produces 277m packs of fresh food products across 44 production lines.

‘Proud that Bradford is the home of Morrisons’

Morrisons chief executive Rami Baitiéh described the supermarket chain as a “proud food maker”​ which is “always exploring ways in which we can showcase our expertise and develop new and exciting opportunities to take our products to a wider market”.​

Baitiéh added: “This new facility gives our fantastic team of chefs a space to create the high-quality, British products our customers want, using ingredients from our trusted farmers and growers.”​

Hinchcliffe, Bradford Labour leader, said: “We’re really proud that Bradford is the home of Morrisons and therefore I really welcome this latest investment from the company in the city.  It’s a very well run operation and it’s great to see what care and thought they are putting into new product design at the Innovation Centre. It’s this kind of investment which will retain Morrisons’ place as a market leader.”​

Brabin concluded: “I welcome the investment Morrisons has made into the Greenside Innovation Centre, helping to bring new opportunities to Bradford. Morrisons is an important partner for Bradford and West Yorkshire and I will continue to support them to grow and succeed.”​

In other news, Food Manufacture rounds up the latest new product development (NPD) launches from across the industry​​