O’Brien Contractors has been at the heart of the construction for Nestle’s new £200 million coffee manufacturing centre, the project is progressing well in to 2014, below details the success that Sisk, Nestle and O’Brien have seen thorough out the contract.
Overview
Nestle UK is investing £200 million to enhance its soluble coffee manufacturing centre at Tutbury bringing together for the first time, all forms of coffee production on one site, including freeze dried, spray dried and pod technology – an investment that will create around 140 new jobs in the region. This is in addition to recent investments in DOLCE GUSTO manufacturing which has already created an additional 400 jobs over the last few years.
The new factory development will comprise of a series of interlinked blocks of varying height and scale. These include the reception building for coffee beans, roasting, extraction and drier buildings, as well as buildings for packing, storage, utilities and workshops.
Buildings will range in scale from single-storey engineering workshops to the extraction building, which is a concrete framed tower of over 30m in height.
The appearance of the new factory development will be defined by a carefully selected approach to the cladding finish of the buildings. The profile and colour of the cladding will be selected to add interest and break up the apparent mass of the individual building blocks.
The development will appear as a substantial group of new buildings in the local landscape. From many viewpoints, the new buildings will be seen against the backdrop of the existing factory.
However, they will have an edge to open countryside and there is a recognition that there needs to be landscape treatment around the development to act as a transition from the new factory to open agricultural land.
Progress
After one year of construction the buildings are substantially in place. Site clearing started in January 2013 and over the summer the building frames were constructed with cladding commencing in late 2013. Some of the large processing equipment was installed in late 2013 with the majority due for installation in 2014. New electricity, gas and water supplies are being brought to site to support the increased scale of the factory however the new installation is the most energy efficient factory of it’s type to have been built by Nestle.
As the factory is seen as a long term investment in a manufacturing centre, the size and durability of the factory have been designed accordingly. The concrete frames provide significant fire protection compared to steel frames and the cladding is designed to diminish noise emission as well as insulate the building.
Over 300 hundred people are active on the site each day and in 2013 there were no lost time accidents. The project team have strong safety management procedures in place and contractors are selected with a strong emphasis being given to their safety track record.
The new Nescafe building will be fully operational late 2014 and already the first new starters have joined, spending their first fortnight working through the factory induction process and then moving onto the general overview of coffee manufacture before specialising.