Cargill Opens New Manchester Wheat Plant

The plant, which has seen an investment of around £75 million to convert it from processing imported maize to domestic wheat, will process around 750,000 tonnes of wheat per annum to provide a full range of products.

10/04/08 Cargill’s new wheat processing plant at Trafford Park, Manchester, was officially opened today, marking the company’s ongoing determination to meet growing customer product and supply requirements. The plant, which has seen an investment of around £75 million to convert it from processing imported maize to domestic wheat, will process around 750,000 tonnes of wheat per annum to provide a full range of products including sweeteners for the food industry, proteins and texturisers for the baking industry sector and high quality feed ingredients for the dairy sector.

The new plant incorporates the recently closed down Tilbury plant. The plant will process close to 100% UK wheat, saving on logistics through implementing this local purchasing system and thereby also supporting local farmers.

As well as converting the plant to process wheat, Cargill has, over the last few months, consolidated a number of its food ingredients businesses at the Trafford Park site, which is now the hub for its UK food ingredients business, employing over 300 people. 

Speaking in Manchester, Frank van Lierde, who runs Cargill’s European sweeteners business, said: “This is an exciting time for us as this investment, in a traditional food business, marks the culmination of a strategy put in place three years ago. This strategy was designed to best address the growing needs of our customers both in the UK and Ireland and across Europe in providing them with the right choice of quality products at competitive prices to service their own local manufacturing needs.

Van Lierde stressed to FoodIngredientsfirst.com that “It is important to realise the commitment we are making to the traditional industry by investing £75 million in a time when investments are predominantly being made in the biofuel industry”.

“The advantages of producing sweeteners from wheat, a reduced complexity of operation, efficiences in milling and superior economies of scale allows Cargill to become the most competitive producers of sweeteners, effectively meeting customers product and supply requirements wherever they are,“ Van Lierde said.

Martin Douglas, general manager of Cargill’s Manchester plant said;  “As with any project of this scale, it’s a great feeling to see it at completion as we’re very proud of what this means for our customers, who not only have a continued long-term supply of products from the plant, but can also see Manchester as a “one stop shop” for a range of other food ingredients products from Cargill.” 

The Manchester site is one of a network of plants that make up Cargill’s starches and sweeteners operations in Europe.  Together these plants supply a matrix of products either directly, or sourced from other network plants, at competitive prices to its customers in the food, drink, feed, paper and pharmaceuticals sectors across Europe.