Lanchester Group celebrates 100 jobs in 2012

Some good news in the UK wine sector after problems with harvests and Waverley.

Lanchester Group, the County Durham-based wine and drinks production and bottling company, is celebrating a century of new jobs created this year.

In addition to 10 jobs in the run-up to Christmas, 55 permanent jobs and a further 40 seasonal jobs have been created by the company in 2012.

The Lanchester Group now employs more than 220 people.

Thirty-six of the new posts are at the Greencroft Bottling facility, in County Durham, which is the fourth biggest bottling facility in the UK, and the world’s biggest bottler of 187 ml bottles, such as those used on airlines.

The growth is due in part to Greencroft taking over the bottling for some major New World wine brands.

Tony Cleary, who started the company in the front room of his house in Lanchester, County Durham, 33 years ago, said: “We want to be the best bottler in the UK and Europe.

“To achieve this aspiration we have invested in state-of-the-art equipment, which incorporates the latest nitrogen injection techniques to protect the product, as well as the latest Foss SO2 spectrometer, of which there are only three in the world.

“This can test a range of a wine, such as alcohol content and acidity, in an instant.”

In total, the plant can produce close to 60,000 bottles and Tetra Pak units per hour; the company is the UK’s only high-volume Tetra Pak wine-filler.