Food ingredients firm creates 40 jobs with refit of North Lanarkshire plant

Some 40 jobs have been created following a major refit at one of Scotland’s largest food ingredients manufacturers.

Macphie’s Tannochside facility in North Lanarkshire has restarted full-scale production for the first time since the company consolidated all operations to its Glenbervie headquarters near Stonehaven in mid-2020. That move came in response to the forced closure of many of its customers’ businesses as a result of the pandemic.

In the intervening period, the Tannochside plant has been stripped back to the bricks before a £4 million refit and layout change that will now enable it to add new lines over the coming months.

The 25,000-square-foot facility will predominantly see the production of frozen ice cream inclusions to supply multinational ice cream brands.

Macphie chief executive Andy Stapley said: “This is our biggest ever investment programme at Tannochside since we acquired the site in 2000 and is a show of our long-term commitment to the region. The facility is at the very cutting edge and is allowing us to deliver quality that shines through.”

Investment in equipment, including state-of-the-art manufacturing lines and end-of-line packaging machinery, will enable the operation to compete for and deliver further contracts in the ice cream and frozen dessert market.

The major refit job was overseen by Atom (TPM) and delivered by Marshall Construction.

Stapley added: “This investment has enabled us to create and fill 40 new jobs in a part of the country that has experienced a number of permanent factory closures.

The Tannochside facility has been stripped back to the bricks before a major refit and layout change that will now enable it to add new lines over the coming months.

“This is only the start of it too. We anticipate production to grow rapidly over the next 12 months and that will see us continuing to create new jobs in a broad range of positions.”

Macphie was established in 1928 and now employs more than 250 people across its three sites. The firm has grown from its roots as a craft baker into an ingredients supplier worth more than £60m, supplying global food brands, household name businesses and the wholesale sector.

Sustainability has been a key element to the fourth-generation family firm. It was among Scotland’s first businesses to achieve B Corp status in 2015.