On Friday 21 October 2011, Lars Huntley, Associate Director at Woods Hardwick attended the grand opening of the impressive new Adams Food Ingredients (AFI) factory in Leek, Staffordshire with a sense of pride and achievement. As appointed architects on the project, the team at Woods Hardwick worked with the client, AFI, to ensure the brief was met with meticulous detail and the building itself executed with style.
The grand opening drew a large crowd of attendees including South Morlands District Council's representatives Sybil Ralphs (Council Leader) and Dai Larner (Executive Director), local UK Conservative MP Karen Bradley, The Mayor and Mayoress of Leek, Barrie Cowie and Jean Cowie, and members of the design team and contractor.
Having invested heavily in the building, speeches were made by the Chairman and CEO of the Irish Dairy Board (IDB), Vincent Buckley and Kevin Lane respectively, in which they stressed the importance of the ties between England and Ireland and the economic importance of the UK market to the IDB. It was then left for Shane McEntee, the Irish Agriculture Minster to say a few words before cutting the all-important 'Green Ribbon', to officially open the building.Once open, there were a number of tours of the new state-of-the-art headquarters, which already has one of its lines in production, for the guests to see.Located on the site adjacent to the Kerrygold factory (also recently completed by Woods Hardwick), the new 7,000sqm facility is a result of AFI outgrowing its previous outdated building. The project was commissioned to bring AFI up to the standard of other IDB manufacturing facilities in the UK and Europe, but also in response to increased global demand and the need to meet ever stringent requirements.
Currently, AFI produces a range of dairy ingredients such as cheese flavours, whey protein and lactose, and technical ingredients, such as texturisers, emulsifiers and stabilisers, for various food and drink categories. However, after investing in a detailed review and analysis procedure, AFI have been able to explore a wider range of products and new technologies which allows them to venture into new areas.
With such optimistic plans for growth, the new facility provides sufficient space to allow for this. As part of the overall concept, the future expansion has been designed into the new facility with a phased development approach, enabling AFI to easily adapt to growth within the business in the short and long-term.
Lars Huntley, Associate Director at Woods Hardwick said, “it's great to finally see the factory open and in operation. So many factors had to be taken into consideration when planning the design of the building, such as internal traffic and people flows, the requirement to meet strict hygiene protocols, the number of staff employed and the time needed for them to get to various locations within the building. It's taken a lot of hard work and meticulous detailing, but the end result is fantastic. AFI now have an exemplar plant offering leading-edge provision. We're delighted with the end product and so are they!”.
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