West Wales potato supplier Puffin Produce to ramp up production following major investment

A farmer-owned fresh food supplier based in Pembrokeshire has had a major injection of cash allowing it to create jobs both within the company and among its farm suppliers.

Puffin Produce has significantly increased capacity at its Withybush potato packing plant near Haverfordwest after a £850,000 investment, supported by Barclays to introduce two new state of the art packing lines.

Puffin Produce is three-quarters of the way into an £8.4m investment programme that has enhanced key areas of its operation.

“We have replaced two out of the three packing lines in the factory with state of the art equipment. That has doubled throughput from 40 to 80 bags per minute per line,” said managing director of Puffin Produce, Huw Thomas.

“We’ve also added more than 8,000 tonnes of highly efficient potato storage and expanded the vegetable operation,” he added.

These and other improvements have enabled Puffin Produce to take on new customers. It now supplies Asda, Tesco, Waitrose, M&S and Sainsbury’s stores throughout Wales.