BBI members recently travelled to the heart of East Anglia for a visit to the Premier Foods Pickle and Sauce Factory located at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Premier Foods is the UK’s largest food producer and one of the leading UK groups for the supply of branded process foods. The Bury St. Edmunds site is an ideal location for receiving Raw Food Materials since East Anglia is one of the UK's main areas for food production and has a strong agricultural base.

The visit was hosted by Ian Hale, Factory General Manger, and commenced with Ian giving members a very informative presentation on the site history and its achievements.
The site has a 38 year history and has a responsibility for the production of Loyd Grossman and Sherwood’s Cooking Sauces, Branston, Hayward’s, and Sherwood’s pickle ranges as well as own label pickles and sauces for Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury, and Tesco.

The story at Bury St Edmunds factory is one of success from a very serious situation. Recovery from a devastating fire in 2004 which burnt down half the factory has been quite spectacular. The response has been to grow the total factory out put from 39,000 tons in 2004 to 75,000 tons for 2008.

The factory has a unique layout as there are two factories in one. One half of the factory is dedicated to sauce production and filling, and the other is dedicated to pickle production and filling with a new central warehouse between the two units for raw materials and finished product. Ian explained the new warehouse had recently been completed as well as an extension to the existing food preparation building, thus increasing food processing and warehouse capacity, at a cost of £1.3m, this being part of significant capital investment over the past 4 years. Supply of raw materials to the warehouse is based on J.I.T. and the supply system has to deal with 450 S.K.U.’s.

BBI members were given a full tour of the site, conducted by members of the management team, and were also given a detailed explanation of all processes undertaken at the factory. The sauce factory has 4 production lines dedicated to the various types of finished product. Materials are prepared in a separate blending room. Significantly for two of the sauce manufacturing lines there is a processing system using advanced technology for homogenous mixing, agitation and heating of finished product.
Filling equipment includes Sympak and Zacmi volumetric piston fillers, both specifically designed to accommodate sauce based products, and the top rated filler has an ability to fill at 450 containers per min. Kosme labelling machines are used for bottle dressing, the packaging and line end equipment being supplied by Kister, Stork, Berchi, Ocme and Aetna.

The pickle factory contains 6 production lines and produces a massive 45 tons of Branston per day as well as the other products. Our members, predominantly from the drinks industry, found cleaning, cooking and filling of whole mini beetroot, and pickling, a fascinating process. This plant contains pasteurisers and cookers supplied by Zacme, labellers by Kosme and Vacuum fillers by Sympak.

The factory has a high degree of complexity given all the different products, and has a reputation for being able to respond to new business needs and customer requirements, hence its rapid growth over the past 4 years. There are around 480 employees on site, there is a strong emphasis towards health and safety, and on the tour we found a strong ethic of hygiene.

The visit was well attended and gave members of the BBI a much appreciated opportunity to view a different operation from the usual Brewery and Soft Drinks factory visits. The Bury St Edmund site is a modern operation and we gained the impression that the factory, as well as being responsive, is well organised and efficient. On conclusion of the visit Brian Gibbs, BBI Visits Coordinator, thanked Ian and his team for giving their time and effort in making this an extremely interesting visit as well as their excellent hospitality, which commenced on our arrival at the site security centre.

Visit Premier Foods website www.premierfoods.co.uk /

Brian Gibbs