Second wind for Triple S

THE TRIPLE S meat processing plant in south-west England, which went into voluntary liquidation last year owing farmers thousands, has been bought by a local butcher and farmer.

Minehead-based business Gerald David & Family has stepped in to buy Britain’s most modern meat processing plant in Newton Abbott, aquiring a major back-up facility for its five shops in Somerset and Devon.

The plant has lain idol after Triple S, a farmer-run business launched to process and sell meat from South Devon farms, ran into trouble.

But it will be back in operation within weeks after the £900,000 deal.

Gerald David said: “An opportunity like this only comes along rarely. It was simply too good a deal to miss.

“We are a very successful business but we are literally bursting at the seams with our current premises.

“When we are preparing for one of our big shows, we can be boning out anything up to 30 cattle, 100 lambs and 12 pigs in the cutting room behind our shop in Minehead, and that puts immense pressure on the space and the staff,” added Mr David.

NFU livestock board chairman Richard Haddock, one of the founders of Triple S, said it was good news that livestock farmers in the south-west would have another big independent buyer.

Most of the business’s farmer shareholders, who helped fund the £2.5m project, should have got their money back, he added.