The owners of one of the north-east’s main abattoirs are investing £1.5million in it.
Morrisons is installing new packaging equipment in the boning hall as well as tray washing facilities at its Woodhead Bros operation in Turriff, where it has 330 staff.
Separately, the business will from now on also be providing its farmer suppliers with carcase data on lambs to their specific EID tag number.
Site manager Michael Tough said the packaging equipment would vacuum pack both beef and lamb primals before they are sent out to Morrisons’ in-store butchers.
“The preparatory work has started and the equipment will be installed in the coming days. The equipment will be running from the beginning of November. It is state-of-the-art technology and will be one of the few machines of its type in operation in the UK,” he added.
“It replaces the packaging equipment which was installed years ago by Buchan Meat. It will mean that we can pack a lot more and give us a lot more capacity at the site.”
The washing facilities will clean the trays on which the packaged beef and lamb is sent out from the abattoir to Morrisons’ stores across the UK.
Mr Tough poured scorn on unfounded farmer-led rumours about the future of the facility, saying the investment showed the commitment that Morrisons as a group had to Turriff.
He said he too had heard the speculation. “There’s no review, there’s no threat to staff. Speculation like this is unnecessary and only hits staff morale,” he added.
“There has been a significant period of employing people at the site over the last six months and there are now 330 colleagues at Turriff.”
Woodhead processes about 11,000 lambs and up to 750 cattle a week through Turriff. The majority of those are sourced direct from farm.
Most of the lambs are from Scottish farms, but some are shipped from elsewhere in the UK depending on availability. All the cattle are Scottish born.
Mr Tough also dismissed farmer speculation about the site having problems sourcing cattle.
He added: “We’ve never had an issue with that. Some weeks we are over-subscribed with cattle. In all the years I’ve been there we’ve never been short of stock.”
Morrisons’ agriculture manager Andrew Loftus said the matching of carcase information – including weights and grades – down to the individual EID tag number was an industry first.
He said it should prove useful to farmers in helping them identify the best genetics in their flocks as well as assist them in improving the overall performance of them by being able to see the rearing and feeding regimes.