Planning permission has been granted for Sadel Group to develop a new food processing facility at their site in Easton, Lincolnshire.

Alongside the new 200,000 sqft food processing development, Magnavale (a Cold Storage platform fully owned by the Sadel Group) is currently constructing a £130m, fully automated, 101,000 pallet cold storage facility, due to be completed in Q3 2024 and already operates a further 45,000 pallets of existing cold storage on site. The newly approved plans for a major food production and processing factory solidify the site as the first of Sadel Group’s wider Food Hub strategy. 

Sadel Group’s Food Hubs co-locate and integrate food production with temperature-controlled storage, reducing food-miles which in turn enhances shelf-life, and reduces both food waste and carbon emissions. This forms part of Sadel Group’s wider strategy to invest into the vital and sustainable infrastructure needed to remove inherent inefficiencies in the food supply chain and dramatically improve food security in the UK and across Europe.

The 16^th of May planning committee meeting for South Kesteven District Council unanimously voted in favour of regeneration plans that will see food production return to Easton, Lincolnshire. Delivering hundreds of local jobs and an annual boost of £16.6m for the local economy.

The food production areas of the site have been mostly dormant since May 2020, when McCains closed one of their production facilities, which led to the loss of approximately 230 jobs. The site has a long history of food processing and food storage which supported local agriculture and farming communities, particularly the important pea and bean harvests which were made impossible when the facilities to process and store them closed.

Beyond retrofitting and refurbishing the existing buildings, Sadel Group’s recent regeneration activity on the site has already seen the development of a cutting-edge new temperature-controlled warehouse. With the approval of the new facilities however, Sadel Group will transform the site into a highly automated, sustainable Food Hub, supporting the local economy and Lincolnshire’s wider food sector.

The Easton site will become a hub for sustainable food production and storage, integrating multiple co-dependent services, allowing food to arrive on site as raw materials and be processed, stored, picked, packed, labelled and shipped directly to retailers without ever having to leave. This innovative approach reduces the length and complexity of food supply chains and delivers savings in both carbon emissions and cost to the end consumer.

The Food Hub concept consolidates interlinked but frequently isolated parts of the supply chain, from production to storage and logistics, and delivers new, high automated, sustainably powered, integrated facilities that enhance food sector commercial viability and national food security. Sadel Group aims to develop this concept in numerous locations both nationally and internationally.