Jobs boost hope at Telford poultry firm

Faccenda Foods UK has announced proposals for its chicken processing plant in Hortonwood.

The plant produces meat for discount supermarkets and fast food restaurants and currently handles around one million birds per week.

This is set to increase to 1.3 million in January – with the business set to grow even further in the coming years.

To handle the new business, it is expected that 1,000 staff will be working at the plant from January – a potential increase of 450 workers.

This will turn Faccenda into one of the town's biggest employers. Bosses at the factory said increasing demand for its products had led to the need for expansion. HR director Andrew Brodie said its capacity has grown "ten fold" over the past 25 years.

He said the expansion will give the company the potential to grow to handling around two million birds in the future.

However, it is understood that the planned expansion would also include a lot more automated practices, limiting the number of new job opportunities.

In January 2012, the company was granted permission to treble the size of the Hortonwood site, and this work is still taking place.

Faccenda already employs 550 people at the Telford site. Staff from its other factory in Dudley have also been offered the chance to transfer to Hortonwood, although there are no plans to close its Black Country site.

In total Faccenda employs 2,000 people in the UK and turns over £300 million a year.

Meanwhile, Manor Farm, in Felton Butler, Shrewsbury, has put forward £1 million plans to house up to another 84,000 chickens on site.

Pryce and Son Ltd, which runs Manor Farm, wants to add two poultry sheds to the seven already on site and another three feed bins.