Knowsley Business Park – Acquisition – 33,517 sq ft
Blends, one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of specialist food ingredients, has doubled the size of its base in Knowsley Business Park to cater for record client demand and acquired a new manufacturing facility of 33,517 sqft at Picton House, Knowsley.
The move follows £4.6m in funding from Santander Corporate & Commercial and Merseyside Special Investment Fund (MSIF), with MSIF providing a £200,000 grant through the Regional Growth Fund’s High Growth Business Investment Programme.
A family-owned business established in 1998 at a bakery in Liverpool, Blends relocated to Knowsley in 2012.
The firm, which sells around 90% of its products to trade customers, has four strands to its business: a range of ‘commodity’ food ingredients such as glycerine and glucose; an array of food flavours; food colourings; and blending/repacking.
The majority of the business is buying liquid food ingredients in bulk and repacking into smaller sizes.
The firm, which was recently awarded Small Business of the Year 2015 at the Knowsley Business Regeneration Awards, has enjoyed strong demand from its expanding base of clients, reflected in the need to double the size of its manufacturing facilities.
The funding from Santander and MSIF will support this expansion as well as a planned recruitment drive to increase the number of staff by 17. The firm currently employs 38 staff.
Michael Rowark, Operations Director comments’
“Following acquisition of our current site in 2011 the company has grown and expanded annually. As a result a secondary site became a necessity to allow investment in several new product lines. We envisage the acquisition of the new premises will result in the creation of an additional 20 new staff within the next 2 years.”
Blends Ltd were represented by LM6 Commercial Property Ltd
www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/business/blends-expand-thanks-mix-santander-11019266