DOWNPATRICK-based food producer Finnebrogue is spending £2.8 million to upgrade its plant-based food factory in the town.
The company, which supplies plant-based food to UK supermarkets (it is also renowned for its pork sausages, wagyu burgers and nitrite-free Naked Bacon), has installed 2,850 solar panels on the roof of its three-year-old vegan food factory.
It is also expanding car parking and infrastructure around the site to accommodate further growth.
Finnebrogue says its latest investment will eliminate hundreds of tonnes of Co2 emissions, provide further energy security and provide it with the additional infrastructure required to accommodate its further growth within the plant-based category.
The company's overall sales are projected to surpass £200 million this year, up from £188 million in 2022.
Indeed its plant-based output alone has increased threefold since 2021, making a broad range of plant-based food formats on a private-label and co-manufacturing basis.
In February Finnebrogue - which employs more than 1,200 people - was named plant-based food manufacturing company of the year at the 2023 Food Manufacture Excellence Awards.
Finnebrogue’s chief strategy officer Jago Pearson said: “As we continue on our growth trajectory in the plant-based sector and across the other categories in which we play, we also continue to invest in our people and our facilities.
“We have four outstanding food production facilities in County Down, the oldest being just eight years old, but we are always seeking ways in which we can make improvements so we can make more food the best it can possibly be.
“Our latest investment in our industry-leading plant-based facility will reduce our carbon emissions, deliver additional energy security and provide us with additional room to grow.
“We are particularly confident about the increasingly significant role we can play in the plant-based category in the years to come, our output having grown threefold in two years and our development teams working intensively on the agenda-setting innovation that has always been the foundations of our success.”
In July Finnebrogue confirmed that it will partner with UK-leading cultivated meat company Ivy Farm Technologies to create one of the world’s first commercially-available 'laboratory-grown' wagyu beef burger.
