Carlisle food company 100 jobs boost

EXCLUSIVE By Andy Nixon

Last updated 13:09, Thursday, 21 August 2008

A CARLISLE food company that started with two local businessmen trading from the back of a van is expanding, creating up to 100 new jobs.

View more pictures...

Extension: The Calder Foods Carlisle factory

Calder Foods Ltd is building a £2.5m extension to its Burgh Road Industrial Estate factory and has acquired a competitor’s business in a £3.6m deal that will help boost the Cumbrian jobs market.

The firm, which is one of the UK’s largest sandwich filling manufacturers, already employs more than 100 workers in Carlisle and at a distribution depot in Birmingham.

The acquisition of business from the Daniels Group, famous for its Covent Garden Soup Company brand, will see the firm’s sandwich filling business transferred to Carlisle.

To take on the extra business Calder Foods has invested £2.5m in a massive extension to their factory and is looking to as much as double their workforce over time.

The firm has also secured a £150,000 grant towards the work from the North West Development Agency aided by Cumbria Vision.

Calder Foods was started in 1991 by joint managing directors Paul Barker and Nigel Harrison who sold their cars to buy a van to sell-on sandwich fillings.

They started manufacturing their own fillings in 1997 from a small factory at Harraby Green Business Park in Carlisle.

They now manufacture sandwich fillings for major retailers including Harvey Nichols, O’Briens, Spar as well as supplying all of the secondary schools in Cumbria and schools and hospitals further afield.

“The acquisition of the business from Daniels Group is a major coup for Calder Foods and a real boost for Carlisle in general,” said Mr Barker.