Segro backs food campus project billed as new asset class

Industrial buildings specialist Segro is to partner company Smart Parc in the creation of a 171,870 sq m (1.85 million sq ft) high-tech food manufacturing and distribution campus which is planned for an industrial site at Spondon, Derbyshire, in the UK’s East Midlands region.

SmartParc said that the agreement with SEGRO heralds the creation of “a new asset class dedicated to ‘state of the art’ food manufacturing and distribution” and that the Spondon project paves the way for the food industry to collaborate to meet the challenges of sustainable production while addressing the need for efficient direct routes to consumers.  

Segro will act as development partner providing “a multi-million-pound investment” to regenerate the 112-acre former Celanese site. SmartParc will provide onsite managed services, supporting the food community to increase production efficiency and drive reduced operational costs through collaborative working.

The project will use energy sharing infrastructure to utilise wind and solar power which, combined with centralised services, will create a sustainable food production community.

The local authority granted planning consent for the project in June and the government’s Getting Building Fund has allocated £12 million to the scheme.

Project addresses challenges facing food sector

SmartParc was founded to address the challenges facing the food sector and will provide food manufacturing facilities ranging from start-up incubation units through to large-scale manufacturing facilities ranging from 4,645 sq m to 37,161 sq m (50,000 to 400,000 sq ft). A food manufacturing technology centre of excellence will also be built on the site.

SmartParc aims to provide a sustainable blueprint for the food industry. “Climate change has highlighted the need for far-reaching industry change and, in response, SmartParc will re-engineer current food manufacturing and distribution processes. It will create a new, forward-thinking ecosystem of food production, looking towards new technologies such as vertical farming to disconnect weather from our ability to produce sustainable food,” the company said in a statement.

“It is our ambition to build seven SmartParcs within the UK and 100 SmartParcs around the world, with particular focus on delivering food to the developing world most impacted by climate change,” the statement continued. “By providing these communities with manufacturing and growing facilities which harness solar and wind and reclaim and recycle water and energy we can provide an engineering solution to delivering food security to the world.”

It is expected that SmartParc Spondon will create 5,000 direct jobs.

“SmartParc’s bold new concept for food manufacturing and distribution has the potential to be a true game-changer,” said Segro managing director national logistics Andrew Pilsworth. “Over the last 18 months we’ve seen the importance of having robust supply chains closer to home and being able to quickly and efficiently distribute goods. SmartParc enables both of these within the vital food and drink sector and does so while keeping sustainability at its heart.”