North-east firm Macphie creates more than 40 central belt jobs following £4m refit of its plant in Uddingston

North-east food ingredient manufacturer Macphie has created 40 new jobs following a £4 million refit of its plant in Uddingston, near Glasgow.

The Tannochside facility has restarted full-scale production for the first time since the company consolidated all operations to its 2,000-acre Glenbervie headquarters, near Stonehaven, in mid-2020, in response to the closure of many of its customers’ businesses at the height of the Covid pandemic.

In the intervening period the North Lanarkshire facility was stripped back to its bricks before a £4m refit and layout change that will allow it to add new lines over the coming months as part of business growth plans.

Sign of long-term commitment

Macphie chief executive Andy Stapley said: “This is our biggest ever investment programme at Tannochside since we acquired the site in 2000 and is a show of our long-term commitment to the region.

“The facility is at the very cutting edge and is allowing us to deliver quality that shines through.”

The 25,000sq ft facility will mainly make frozen ice-cream inclusions for multinational brands.

Investment in equipment, including modern new manufacturing lines and end-of-line packaging machinery is expected to help Macphie compete for and deliver new contracts in the ice-cream and frozen dessert market.

Mr Stapley added: “This investment has enabled us to create and fill 40 new jobs in a part of the country that has experienced a number of permanent factory closures.

“This is only the start of it too. We anticipate production to grow rapidly over the next 12 months and that will see us continuing to create new jobs in a broad range of positions.”

The refit was overseen by project manager Atom (TPM) and delivered by Marshall Construction.

Glasgow roots

Family-owned Macphie makes products used by bakers, pubs, restaurants, hotels, ready-made food firms and caterers around the world. It employs more than 250 people.

The firm was founded in Glasgow as a wholesale business by Alister Macphie, the current chairman’s great-uncle, in the 1920s and has grown into an ingredients supplier worth more than £60m.

It moved into manufacturing in the 1970s and its headquarters were relocated to Glenbervie – where the Macphie family had been farming for more than 700 years – in 1973.

The company made 93 redundancies early on in the pandemic, including 55 in Glasgow and 38 in Aberdeenshire.

It was among Scotland’s first businesses to achieve B Corp status in 2015, having successfully demonstrated a high standard of social and environmental performance.