Last year we announced that we were investing £35 million in a new state-of-the-art distribution facility in Warrington, Cheshire. After months of hard work and intense planning, the facility is now operational and houses the Sykes head office. This new facility has been custom-built to our needs and specifications to fulfil the demands across our entire group, which has seen the acquisition of three other seafood companies (Klaas Puul, Ruskim Seafoods, and The Big Prawn Company) in the last 2 years.
Bigger and Better Things
The 167,000 sqft building will serve as our new head office and offer cold storage and distribution solutions closer to our prawn processing factory in Sefton, allowing a more efficient supply chain.
Alan Dale, Sykes Seafood CEO and owner, said “The new distribution centre gives us next-day delivery in the UK and Ireland on frozen and chilled quality seafood products. Instead of building a new plant as we had once planned, the distribution centre gives us the space to triple the output from our existing factory in Maghull, Sefton, around 35 kilometres northwest of Warrington. Once the work is fully complete, the plant will be able to process 60,000 metric tons of raw material annually, compared to 20,000 metric tons at the moment.”
Improving Processing Capacity and Facilities
With such an increase in facility size and capacity space, Alan went on to say that “Around 60% of what the plant processes are warm water shrimp, with the rest coldwater and other items. We are installing temperature-controlled storage in the distribution centre (Warrington), intending to operational by early 2023, at the latest, said Alan Dale.
“We will then expand Sefton, Liverpool into the current storage space on-site, giving us an increase of three times in output. The site will be fed raw material, and finished goods will return to Warrington. In addition, we have received approval for a new chiller unit after demolishing the existing dry store, processing areas, loading bays, warehouse and office space. Sykes Seafood has invested heavily in this new project: precisely around £10 million in the distribution centre, a further £10 million in tripling its processing capacity, and £8 million in a new fleet of trucks. An additional £7 million will be spent on essential equipment for the plant expansion.”
The fleet truck investment is tied into Sykes’ deal with Ruskim Seafoods, a foodservice-focused UK distributor specialising in frozen prawns. “We will have 50 new trucks to replace the Ruskim fleet in early 2023, said Alan Dale.
The combined group business operates five manufacturing sites across the UK, Europe, and Morocco and ten distribution centres in the UK and Europe, employing over 3,900 employees. Alan Dale also confirmed he’d assigned Neil Townend, Sykes Seafood Group Operating Director, as managing director of the Klaas Puul business in early 2023.
Sykes Seafood Warrington Location
You can find our new Sykes Seafood Warrington facility here: Unit 1 Omega Blvd, Great Sankey, Warrington WA5 3ZL