Advice is key to managed expansion

A Measham-based company has seen its production capacity soar and is planning to take on more staff following support it's received from the region's chief manufacturing advisers.

A Measham-based company has seen its production capacity soar and is planning to take on more staff following support it's received from the region's chief manufacturing advisers.

Trunature, the world's largest producer of elastic netting for the meat and fish industry selling to processors that supply the supermarket giants such as Tesco and Asda, approached the Manufacturing Advisory Service East Midlands (MAS EM) for help just as it was planning a major expansion to the business.

Two years later, this support has helped the company boost its turnover by 50%, with a further rise expected this year, and seen Trunature's production capacity increase three-fold.

And from employing 33 workers at its UK site three years ago, it's projected that its current workforce will rise from 45 to 50 by the end of 2007.

The firm's Financial Director Wayne Penlington is delighted.

He said: "When we bought an additional factory three years ago as part of our growth plan, we knew it was time to take a closer look at our production processes and find out how we could improve our efficiency".

"It was also time to overhaul our internal systems to bring them up-to-date".

"Ray MacKinnon, the MAS practitioner who's worked closely with us over the past two years, was able to give us practical, common sense advice on all these aspects of our manufacturing operation".

"We're now in a position where we have considerably more capacity and production is visibly more efficient".

"Ray has also helped us overhaul the internal culture of the business so that we're much more customer focused and accountable throughout the group".

"We couldn't have made, or indeed coped with, all of these changes or our projected growth without the support we received from MAS".

And because of his many years of experience in the food industry, MacKinnon was able to share his invaluable knowledge with the firm's newly appointed factory manager and also act as his sounding board for new ideas.

Established 15 years ago, Trunature also has a production facility in Vietnam and exports half of its products overseas to EU states, South America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

As well as making high quality meat netting, the company based on Westminster Industrial Estate in Measham, also produces chicken loops and related equipment such as net loaders and stuffing machines.

MAS EM has recently received more funding to expand the range of support it can offer manufacturers across the region.

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