Left to right: Steve Bell, unit director, Frupac, Chris Clapham, John Foley, Waitrose head of buying, fruit, vegetables and horticulture, David Lynch and William Burgess

Left to right: Steve Bell, unit director, Frupac, Chris Clapham, John Foley, Waitrose head of buying, fruit, vegetables and horticulture, David Lynch and William Burgess

As part of a Waitrose supply partner project aimed at reducing costs through supplier collaboration, Produce World has opened Frupac - a new £1.25 million, 4,000m2 packing, cold storage and ripening centre.

The site, at Yaxley, south of Peterborough, was occupied until October last year by Produce World’s potato company Solanum, supplier to Waitrose - now based at Sutton Bridge. It now becomes the distribution hub for two more of Waitrose’s category leaders; British & Brazilian, which provides stonefruit, grape and melons, and Suncrop, a joint winter-tomato category leader that also supplies organic potted herbs.

The building will consolidate the three companies’ Waitrose volumes and initially run at around 65 per cent capacity. It will handle more than 2.5 million cases of fruit, vegetables and salads in its first 12 months in operation.

While in the pipeline for some time, the eventual catalyst for this development was The Greenery’s announcement that it was selling its Thrapston facility, used by both by B&B and Suncrop.

See Friday's Journal for more detail.

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