SK Chilled Foods: Up to 60 new jobs on the menu at South Bank manufacturing facility

Jeremy Faulkner, managing director of SK Chilled Foods, said: 'This move marks the next stage of our expansion plans'

A food production company has unveiled plans to create up to 60 jobs by ramping up production on Teesside.

SK Chilled Foods wants to use a vacant industrial unit near its South Bank manufacturing facility to make extra ingredients for its snack foods and ready meals.

The move will help the firm develop two new products for major UK retailers, with production expected to start this summer.

The company, which employs more than 600 people across sites at Wynyard, South Bank and Riverside Park Industrial Estate, said its new facility was part of plans to increase its £50m turnover by 25% over the next three years.

Jeremy Faulkner, managing director of SK Chilled Foods, said: “This move marks the next stage of our expansion plans.

“It will move us into a new product area and help us to create 50-60 jobs over the next 18 months.

“We can’t say too much about the products as they’re currently under development - but they are being developed for two major retailers.”

Mr Faulkner said the company, which is owned by The Entrepreneurial Food Group in California, had no plans to position itself for a sale or stock market flotation.

“We’re a privately owned business in Teesside and that’s the way we’ll stay,” he said. “The owners are very happy with us.

“In the eyes of our customers, a big strength of the company is the fact that we’re based in Teesside. That means we’re able to do things proactively and very quickly.”

SK Chilled Foods has expanded rapidly since it was established in 1987 with 10 staff at a small production facility in Skelton.

Twelve years later the company was bought by The Entrepreneurial Food Group - a move which led to the launch of two manufacturing sites at Riverside Park and South Bank.

The company has doubled turnover in the last four-and-a-half years and now supplies own-brand chilled snack foods and ready meals to some of the UK’s biggest retailers, including Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Asda.

The South Bank facility produces Tex Mex-style specialities including onion rings, breaded mushrooms, potato wedges, potato skins, fajitas and nachos, as well as a range of Indian food such as Bhajis.

Its Riverside Park site makes spring rolls, wontons, prawn toast and samosas while its main warehousing and distribution centre is based at Wynyard.