In October 2003, Scottish and Newcastle UK announced its intention to open two state-of-the-art bottling lines in a purpose-built plant based at Tadcaster brewery.

The project cost £24m and its aim was to create a centre of excellence in bottling in terms of productivity, quality and service.

The company is committed to the continuous improvement of the plant’s 40 staff. Each staff member has a minimum of 10 days built into their timetable for training so that they can learn about all aspects of the business from packaging to buying, and the principles of the machinery they work with.

The workforce has responded well to the programme and the company now plans to introduce more vocational training. It is currently working on mapping the National Occupational Standards to their in-house training in order to introduce NVQ training across the work force.