Worksop Factory

{{Infobox building

| name = Worksop Factory

| native_name = Premier Foods Worksop

| former_names =

| alternate_names =

| image = Dukeries Industrial Estate - geograph.org.uk - 127423.jpg

| caption = The Oxo factory seen in February 2006

| map_type = United Kingdom Nottinghamshire

| altitude = {{convert|43|m|ft|0|abbr=on}}

| building_type = Food production plant

| architectural_style =

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| cost =

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| location =

| address = Dukeries Industrial Estate, Worksop, S81 7AY

| client = Unilever

| owner = Premier Foods

| current_tenants =

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| coordinates = {{coord|53.318|-1.14|display=inline}}

| start_date = 1980

| completion_date = 1982

| inauguration_date = 17 November 1982

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}}

The Worksop Factory is a main food manufacturing site in Bassetlaw District in north Nottinghamshire that makes well-known types of instant food, such as instant noodles, as well as well-known gravy products.

History

Unilever a site at East Bridgford.Nottingham Evening Post Saturday 9 August 1952, page 5

In July 1969, £750,000 was invested in a new plant for packet soups, to open in 1971.Times Saturday July 12, 1969, page 11 In 1969, the extension to the factory was begun by local MP Joe Ashton; it would employ 300 more people.Retford, Gainsborough & Worksop Times Friday 22 August 1969, page 1

A new factory was to be built in early 1975.Retford Times Friday 12 September 1975, page 6 The site was fined in September 1977.Nottingham Evening Post Friday 23 September 1977, page 17

Packet soups moved to Kent in the early 1990s.Retford Times Thursday 21 February 1991, page 6Kentish Express Thursday 30 May 1991, page 15

A distribution centre was built in 1999, with another in Peterborough,Wigan Observer Tuesday 20 July 1999, page 45which opened on 3 December 1999.Nottingham Evening Post Friday 3 December 1999, page 29

=Industrial action=

In September 1977, a nine-week strike by the TGWU cost the company £5.5m.

Times Wednesday July 20, 1977, page 18Times Saturday July 30, 1977, page 15Times Saturday, August 27, 1977, page 17Times Wednesday September 7, 1977, page 17Times Friday September 9, 1977, page 23

Production

In the mid-1980s, £2m was invested at the site. Cardboard for the tubs is provided by Sonoco Europe, in Chesterfield; the former Robinson Paperboard Packaging was bought in July 2011.[https://sonoco.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/sonoco-acquires-assets-robinson-paperboard-packaging Sonoco Europe 2011]

Every day the site makes 3.7m Oxo cubes. Around 50 million Bisto gravy drums are made a year.

File:Worksop's "Oxo" factory from the A60 - geograph.org.uk - 4822509.jpg

=Oxo=

Oxo was made at Great Harwood from 1939 to December 1992, when production was moved to Worksop by Unilever. Around four hundred employees had been at the Great Harwood site in Lancashire, but Unilever had tried to build a new factory in the 1980s, which was blocked by the local council.

After blocking a new factory in the 1980s, when Unilever announced to the local council, in 1990, it was leaving, the council attempted to stop Unilever leaving.Accrington Observer Friday 2 February 1990, page 1 Discussions were held in London with the local Conservative MP, Ken Hargreaves.Accrington Observer Friday 16 February 1990, page 29 In February 1991, it was announced that Oxo would move to Worksop, as part of Brooke Bond. Manufacturing equipment would move later in 1991.Nottingham Evening Post Wednesday 13 February 1991, page 1Accrington Observer Friday 22 February 1991, page 5 Manufacturing moved in December 1992.Accrington Observer Friday 4 September 1992, page 1Accrington Observer Friday 4 December 1992, page 7

Oxo became part of Van den Bergh Foods in 1995 at Crawley.

=Gravy and salt=

Saxa salt and Bisto were made at Middlewich in Cheshire until September 2008, which was the former Cerebos until 1968.

Bisto and Paxo, moved from Greatham to Middlewich in 1968, and moved Worksop in 2008, previously being made by RHM Foods. Middlewich had also made Paxo stuffing, now made in Kent.Winsford Chronicle Thursday 15 February 1968, page 15 Prince Philip visited this Bisto factory on 25 June 1969.Winsford Chronicle Thursday 26 June 1969, page 1Times Tuesday April 8 1969, page 10 RHM had bought Cerebos for £61m in July 1968. Cerebos also owned Sharwoods sauces, which mostly made mango chutney;Times Wednesday July 3 1968, page 21 Cerebos had bought J.A. Sharwood in November 1962.Times Thursday November 8 1962, page 18 Sharwoods was made from 1968 by RHM in Greatham in Teesside;Times Wednesday March 2 1977, page 19Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail Monday 20 June 1988, page 24 this site was the former Greatham Salt and Brine Works, and was the headquarters of Cerebos;Times Friday December 4 1903, page 11 the site also made Atora suet, now made in Wales (Dafen, Carmarthenshire).Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail Wednesday 20 July 1988, page 1 RHM, itself, was formed in 1963.Times Thursday July 4 1968, page 23 RHM exported over six hundred different products to seventy five countries.Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail Tuesday 28 September 1993, page 30

=Food sauces=

In 1995 Ragú sauce and Chicken Tonight started to be made at the site, the first in the UK; there were many TV advertisements.Nottingham Evening Post Thursday 20 April 1995, page 20

The process line was built by T Musk Engineering of Swadlincote, part of WT Parker.Burton Daily Mail Thursday 20 April 1995, page 27

File:What a lot of gravy^ - geograph.org.uk - 4482221.jpg

=Mushy peas=

Main variety of mushy peas were Marrowfat peas and Alaskan Blue.[https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1958-02-10/debates/faef1b75-4055-46e3-af7f-d43f7998d896/Peas Peas] Peas were sorted at Worksop, in the 1960s, then processed elsewhere.

Another pea plant was on George Street in Huntingdon, with 325 staff; it closed in 1966.Nottingham Evening Post Tuesday 25 January 1966, page 9[https://www.premierfoods.co.uk/brands/batchelors/ Batchelors Peas] Birds Eye was bought in 1943 by Unilever, but Worksop had nothing to do with frozen peas, this was all largely at Lowestoft in Suffolk.

Research

It has the company research department for dried foods.

The site had most collaboration, in research, with the Colworth research division, which was bought by Unilever in 1947.

In the 1960s the Unilever Food Development Unit on Greyhope Road was at the Torry Food Science Laboratory, near Aberdeen, where it developed accelerated freeze drying, which the British government had required Unilever to investigate, during the Cold War. The site closed in July 1965.

Visits

The site was featured on BBC Two on Tuesday 14 August 2018.[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bg6whb BBC Two August 2018]
In 2005 mathematician Marcus du Sautoy visited the factory, in the first part of his BBC Radio 4 series Five Shapes, where he discussed the cube, with Alan Mansbridge, head of production, and where he watched cubes being made on the production line; 40 million were made each week[https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/fiveshapes.shtml Radio 4]