£5 million boost for Five Star

2 Sisters has invested £5 million in the expansion and upgrade of its secondary processing site in Grimsby. The investment at Five Star Fish comes on the back of new chilled business that was won at the turn of the year.

Simon Wookey, Meal Solutions MD said: “The investment at Five Star will provide the platform for sustained growth and position the site so it can deliver the future needs of our customers.”

"Our priority is to continue to work in partnership with customers to ensure that we are well placed to deliver on quality, service and price.”

PLATFORM FOR GROWTH: Five Star has added an extra line and widened a second.

Britain’s biggest food manufacturer is in the midst of a multi-million pound programme and the ongoing investments made in the last 12 months represents the largest the business has ever undertaken.

Alongside the investment in factories, Meal Solutions has also rolled out a cross functional lean programme where all sites share best practice and build towards a gold standard business platform.

Mark Dalby, acting site lead at Five Star said: “It’s been all hands on deck at Five Star Fish after we won the new business.”

“We’ve experienced a period of stabilisation and building, with a strong focus on driving out cost and embedding our efficiency culture so we’re all fit and ready for the future.”

“The upgrade has introduced new technology, an extra line and the widened of a second. This has been a huge boost to our colleagues and is a perfect reward for their ongoing hard work and commitment.”

“The project has moved at pace and we’ve had some fantastic support from colleagues at other sites that have worked with us to develop our food culture and thereby supply our customers with improved consistency and better eating quality.”

GOLD STANDARD: The roll out of lean is changing the culture of the site.

Earlier this year, Five Star hired two new appointments to boost its fish buying team in Jason Letch and Andrew Nicholson.

Jason joins as the category manager for fish after 20 years’ experience of sourcing seafood from around the world and Andrew brings a wealth of knowledge in developing production standards and sustainable sourcing policies.

Mark added: “Jason and Andrew both bring a great depth of fish buying experience to our team that will enable us to build on this platform and drive our business forward.”

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