WILLOWBROOK INVESTS FOR GROWTH

A series of production investment projects over recent months by Northern Ireland based Willowbrook Farm has resulted in substantially increased business for the company with a leading UK-wide supermarket group of over 4,000 stores, as well as allowing Willowbrook to enhance and extend its already extensive product offering. Located in the rich farming area of Killinchy in County Down, Willowbrook Farm is owned by John McCann, whose family have farmed the land for over 200 years. Today, the company is a leading grower and processor of prepared salads, vegetables and potatoes for the retail, foodservice and ingredient markets throughout the UK and Ireland. The first of the Willowbrooks's recent investments was into the development of a fully automated salad production line, which was designed by the company's Production Engineering Manager Ed Norton. Following successful trials on the first line, two more have since been built, with a fourth currently under construction. Commenting, Lucy Clifford McBrinn, Project Manager at Willowbrook Farm, said: ???The new salad lines have enabled us to double our production capacity and by the time the fourth line goes live it will be up 130 per cent on last year. The system includes what we call a ???delicate touch' salad washer and drier, which minimises damage to the leaves during processing, thus improving product quality and extending shelf life as well as our competitiveness. In February this year, Willowbrook invested in a new potato grader, which can also be used to sort other root vegetables by size. ???We used to grade potatoes solely by eye, which is necessary to achieve our quality standards, but is very time consuming and less accurate in terms of sizing the potatoes for different products or customer requirements,???explained John McCann, Managing Director of Willowbrook Farm. ???With the new grader, we are able to process potatoes and other root vegetables at a much faster speed, while the precise nature of the grading process has opened up the opportunity to extend and enhance our product range, with a number of new lines to be launched over the coming months. ???For example, Willowbrook had previously asked to tender for the supply of baby potatoes with garlic butter for roasting, which we couldn't really do before because the manpower involved in such accurate sizing would have made them prohibitively expensive. However, now we can produce such specialised products with ease, as well as ready-to-roast potato wedges of equal size and tossed in oil and parsley or other coatings, or uniform length chips. And because it can also grade other cylindrical root vegetables, we can now produce, for example, carrots of consistent size to customer requirement,??? added John. Willowbrook Farm has also been producing bean sprouts for some years, but the company's latest investment has been in a new purpose-designed and built bean sprout growing and packing facility. ???Completely naturally grown without any additives, our bean sprouts are long, white, crispy and sweetly flavoured,??? said Lucy Clifford McBrinn. ???With our new facility, we have greatly enhanced our growing and processing techniques to reduce handling and, therefore, bruising of the delicate shoots to a minimum, extending their shelf-life to seven days, which we hope to increase on yet further. ???Willowbrook is in the unique position of being both a bean sprout grower and a vegetable processor/packer, which means that our sprouts can be harvested and incorporated into stir-fry mixes on the same day, taking up to three days off the production chain that would be typical for companies having to buy-in bean sprouts for their mixes. ???At present, most of our sprouts are either sold in bulk packs to the catering trade, 380g retail packs for making stir-fries at home or are used in our own stir-fry mixes. Indeed, since the new bean sprouts facility began production, we have added two new stir-fry mixes to our existing Willowbrook Farm branded range, bringing the total to five. ???However, we believe there is a tremendous opportunity to educate consumers about the nutritional qualities and eating occasions for these sprouts beyond a bulk filler in stir-fries. Bean sprouts are packed full of vitamins, iron and calcium ??" especially when eaten raw - and make a delicious and nutritious alternative to nuts or seeds as a topping for salads. To that end, we plan to launch a smaller pack size (80g) of bean sprouts for merchandising alongside prepared salads and promoting them as a raw salad ingredient,??? concluded Lucy. All in all, Willowbrook Farm, which is BRC Grade A accredited, has ambitious plans for company growth and a continuous programme of investment in new product development, processing equipment and technology is central to that strategy. Eighty per cent of the company's business is outside of its home market, with 56 per cent of that being sales to the UK, both under its own Willowbrook Farm branding and retailer own-label, as well as to foodservice and to other food manufacturers. With its new capabilities, the company aims to grow that business further, whilst maintaining and enhancing its reputation for quality and innovation.