Ice cream maker Mr Whippy has chosen Sheffield as the location for a new £15m factory ahead of launching a new sweet treat to the market.
The Unilever subsidiary will create 50 new jobs with its plans to launch doughnuts alongside its well known soft serve ice cream and cupcakes. It has chosen a 23,355 sqft unit at Woodhouse Link on Innovation Way as the production and distribution site for the new product.
Director Michael Corrado Jackson recently agreed a new lease for the site, which is just off Junction 31 of the M1. Mr Whippy intends to produce 104 million doughnuts at the facility, starting next year.
The unit is now being fitted out for food production, having been marketed by Knight Frank and CPP on behalf of investment manager ESR. Woodhouse Link is already home to a number of industrial and warehouse occupiers including N Vent and BLE Smoke and Fire Curtains.
Mr Corrado Jackson, company director at Mr Whippy, said: “This major investment is a crucial next step for the brand and its product expansion, and this site perfectly fitted our needs both on location, and for operational purposes being a modern, detached unit. We will be able to satisfy the requirements for specialist food production, automation processes, and then easy distribution of the product.
"The unit will be the manufacturing hub for the doughnut production, which will be fully launched next year and available from retailers."
Rebecca Schofield at Knight Frank said: "This is a fantastic example of inward investment in the region to produce a brand-new facility and associated jobs in Sheffield, as part of an ambitious business expansion. The modern unit leant itself to becoming a state of the art food production facility and the location for distribution of the product is unparalleled."
Mr Whippy is produced by Walls. Earlier this year, Unilever confirmed it intends to separate its ice creams business and move the demerged company headquarters to Amsterdam.
