Last year saw Apetito announce plans for a new food manufacturing facility in Wiltshire – known as Kitchen West.
The new facility is to be built on the site of its former pie factory and an additional plot of land it acquired in 2021 that are sat next to each other on the Canal Road Industrial Estate in Trowbridge.
The company, which also owns Wiltshire Farm Foods, has now completed the first phase - making room for the new plant. It was keen this process was sustainable, with the materials generated from the works used in a circular way.
Apetito says the clearing of the old buildings and land preparation work saw approximately 20,000 tonnes of concrete from old foundations crushed on-site. These will now be used to create a flat, stable building platform.
A further 1,500 tonnes of asphalt has also been segregated, crushed and stockpiled for use under the new roads and car park.
This has removed an estimated 1,500 truck movements to and from site and limited the need for new materials to be brought on site during the construction phrase.
Three of the warehouses from the site were dismantled rather than demolished, with cladding, roller shutter doors, purlins and beams among the elements recovered.
One of these is being reconstructed by a waste recycling centre, whilst another has been relocated for use by a company which refurbishes wind turbines. The third building is to be sold to a steel-frame specialist. The fourth smaller storage unit has also been taken down and relocated by the owner – a building materials supplier.
According to the meals producer, around 110 tonnes of steel – over 10% of the metals removed from site – have been reused. This is double the UK industry average and has saved approximately 120 tonnes of carbon dioxide over recycling – equivalent to driving a petrol car around the world 24 times!
Solar panels from one of the former pie site buildings have also been donated to a UK charity, Energy Garden, which will see them used to power a sustainable community hub and garden project.
Overall, around 0.5% of deconstruction materials, by mass, have been saved and sent for reuse; 94.5% of materials have been kept on site and reprocessed for use in the construction, and 4% of materials have been sent to recycling facilities off-site while the residual 1% has been sent to energy recovery.
“By prioritising the re-use and recycling of materials throughout the deconstruction phase, we have significantly reduced the project’s environmental impact and demonstrated our commitment to the circular economy,” commented Lee Sheppard, director of corporate affairs, policy and sustainability at Apetito.
“Kitchen West is a major investment in apetito’s future but also in sustainable manufacturing. From the outset, our ambition has been to create one of the UK’s most environmentally responsible factories, in line with our goal to reach Net Zero by 2040.
“For us, Kitchen West is more than a food manufacturing facility - it’s a statement of how we can lead the way by employing sustainable practices to create a world-class, regenerative production kitchen for Trowbridge.”
Construction for Kitchen West, subject to planning, is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2026. It should be operational by mid-2027 – adding to the site’s capacity - with the existing Mill Site kitchens on Canal Road remaining operational alongside the new facility.
