The investment will expand the factory, located in Tutbury in Derbyshire (UK), and its workforce at a time when UK unemployment is at a 17-year high.
It is the latest in a series of multi-million pound investments Nestlé has made in the UK over the last five years.
These include: £200m to transform its confectionery factory in York, £40m to create a European centre of excellence for Nescafé Cappuccino in Cumbria, and most recently, £35m to build a new water bottling factory in Buxton.
British Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the news. He said: “This new investment by Nestlé and the jobs it will create is brilliant news for UK manufacturing and for the local community. This demonstrates what can be achieved by investing in capacity and people as Nestlé has done consistently over recent years.
“The jobs created by this new investment will benefit both skilled workers and those leaving school who will be able to train in the workplace to become the skilled workers of the future.”
Paul Grimwood, chairman and CEO of Nestlé UK and Ireland, attended an event in Tutbury to announce the factory expansion. “We are creating our next generation of world class competitive manufacturing facilities,” said Mr Grimwood. “We need to continue to innovate to remain ahead of the market and are committed to the ongoing modernisation of our UK manufacturing capabilities.”
Some of the 300 new employees at Tutbury will form part of the first intake of the ‘Nestlé Academy’.
This new initiative will offer young people apprenticeships, graduate programmes and on the job training to help them build a career with Nestlé. The investment will equip the Tutbury factory with 12 new high speed production lines to triple its output. It currently produces about four million capsules a day.
More than 90% of the capsules will be exported to more than 38 countries around the world. They will also be sold in the UK.
Source: Nestlé
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