COMBER agri-food firm Mash Direct is taking on 12 new recruits as it boosts production capacity to meet growing demand for its products.
It comes on the back of a £10 million cash injection from HSBC's £14 billion SME Fund, which aims to support UK businesses realise their ambitions for growth and navigate Brexit.
The new roles will range from operations and management to sales, marketing, exports and human resources, and the business is also investing in a robust training programme to up-skill its existing 200-strong team.
The sixth-generation family business, run by family team Martin, Tracy, Lance and Jack Hamilton, will also use the bank’s support to make its custom-built on-farm production facility more environmentally friendly.
It will instal new solar and wind energy machinery along with a new waste water treatment facility, helping to future-proof the business by reducing its carbon footprint and making the overall plant more sustainable.
Mash Direct will also increase its capacity for growth by adding new production lines to its industrial kitchen so that it can produce new dishes and increase production capacity.
The business - which has won 22 Great Taste Awards - will also add a new onion peeler that will free up space in its peeling area as well as investing in robotics and enterprise management software.
Chief operating officer Jack Hamilton said: “With growing demand for our range of products at home and abroad, it was essential that we invested in new, environmentally friendly machinery and in the talented, skilled staff we currently have.
“Improving our carbon footprint is very important to the business and great strides will be made to do this with our investment in new technology. HSBC UK shares our vision for growth and understands our immediate needs as a rapidly scaling SME in the agri-food sector.”
Marty Colvin, relationship director in Northern Ireland for HSBC UK said: “Mash Direct is an exciting and ambitious SME operating in a highly competitive and thriving sector.
“The improvements it is making to its farming operations with our support will stand it in good stead as it aims to grow its market share and meet demand from customers across the UK and overseas.”
Some £150 million of the HSBC money pot as been allocated to supporting SMEs in Northern Ireland.
Mash Direct grows and produces more than 40 processed vegetable and potato dishes, and it supplies major supermarket chains such as Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, Waitrose, Co-Op, Aldi, Lidl, and Dunnes.
