Yorkshire Forward has approved its first £1 million Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) investment in a potato marketing company in York.
Cockerills, which already supplies potatoes from growers in the region to two discount retailers, will be expanding its packhouse operation, which washes, grades and packs potatoes.
The investment will double its capacity over a five-year period and it is anticipated that 85 per cent of the extra potato tonnage will be sourced from regional growers.
RDPE has £63m to invest in rural businesses over a six-year period through a number of programmes.
In addition to the £1m RDPE grant, Cockerills is investing more than £2m in expanding and developing its business. The funding will be used to build an extension on the potato packing facility at the company’s site at Dunnington near York.
Over the next five years, it has been predicted that the investment will increase Cockerills' turnover through its packhouse by 80 per cent and 33 new jobs will be created growing the 86 strong workforce, to 119 full-time equivalent posts.
Martin Cockerill, managing director at Cockerills, said: “I am delighted that Cockerills will receive the additional funding needed through RDPE. We can now move forwards developing and expanding the company through improving the efficiency and doubling the capacity of our packhouse operation. Without the RDPE funding we wouldn’t have been able to fulfil our growth ambition and we would have had to scale down our plans.”
Andy Tordoff, assistant director of Environment at Yorkshire Forward, said: “The Rural Enterprise Investment Programme can be accessed by businesses like Cockerills that process and add value to agricultural produce, also farm diversification businesses, tourism, forestry businesses and other rural micro businesses. RDPE is a flexible package that can be accessed by many rural businesses; we are working hard with our partners to ensure Yorkshire and Humber’s rural businesses take advantage of it.”
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