£10m bakery opens with 200 jobs

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Family run baker's Warburtons has officially opened its new £10m factory in Newport.

The Bolton based company has created more than 200 jobs at its latest plant and has invested more money into expanding its product line.

It moved to the factory in Rogerstone after outgrowing its first Welsh plant in Treforest, Pontypridd which it set up six years ago.

Workers there produce 4,000 loaves of bread an hour, 24-hours a day.

General manager David Williams said growing demand for their bread from shops across south Wales and Bristol had prompted the expansion.

"We obviously had plans of how we would grow and where we would be and we are miles ahead of that and we are very very pleased," he said.

"We are a couple of years ahead of where we thought we would be so we must be doing something right.

General manager David Williams is pleased with the expansion

"It's nice to be in a position where we are taking on so many people especially when in these areas, certainly in Gwent, there's been lots of industry leaving.

"We started six years ago in a relatively small way and demand grew such that there was the need to put a bakery local, to make local product.

"We don't like making product and shipping it. So the demand was here to we put to the bakery to match demand," he added.

The firm uses 45 tonnes of flour to make 150,000 loaves of bread and fruit loaves 356 days of the year.

The company employs 4,200 people across the UK at its 13 bakeries and 11 depots.