EXETER, UNITED KINGDOM – ForFarmers UK recently renovated its feed mill in Exeter, U.K. It has undergone a £10 million renovation and restructuring process over the last two years to increase the mill’s output capacity from 140,000 tonnes to 300,000 tonnes of animal feed a year.

“One of the key aims for ForFarmers in the U.K. is to improve the productivity and efficiency of our mills,” said Steven Read ForFarmers U.K. chief operating officer. “The investments that we have made at Exeter have been geared around not only improving the quality and efficiency of how we produce feed on site, but also delivery to our customers. For example, the new out loading facility that has been installed utilizes pre-loaded feed bins and has cut discharge of feed into delivery vehicles from 90 minutes, to 90 seconds – reducing delivery times and enabling a higher of volume of customer deliveries each day.”

On Sept. 21, ForFarmers hosted a grand opening at the Exeter Mill and invited the public tour the facilities and observe demonstrations of the site’s new loading and blending systems.

The new facility is 15 meters taller than the previous mill structure to accommodate a new, energy-efficient vertical feed conveyor transport system, which will reduce the site’s energy consumption but also increase product quality.

“The redevelopment is an exciting step forward and after years of hard work and significant financial investment, it is great to see the Exeter mill running to its full potential,” Read said. “The redevelopments will have a really positive impact on our U.K. business as a whole, but especially our South West based customers.”

The new opening is part of the company’s plan to optimize its supply chain in terms of modernizing existing mills and in its footprint of site locations. On Feb. 19, 2019 ForFarmers UK announced it plan to close its feed mill site in Blandford, U.K., as parts of a plan to optimize its supply chain. The closure impacts 30 employees at Blanford facility.

ForFarmers is a market leader in Europe with annual sales of approximately 10 million tonnes of animal feed. The company has operations in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the U.K. and, since July 2018, also in Poland.