Unilever Gloucester

Unilever Gloucester is a large food manufacturing site in the north-east of Gloucester, England, that produces all of the makes of Unilever ice cream for the UK.

Unilever Gloucester
Unilever Ice Cream, Gloucester Factory
Looking north-west from the footbridge over the A417 (for the Premier Inn Gloucester) in November 2008
Location within Gloucestershire
Former namesCotswold Factory
General information
TypeIce cream factory
Architectural styleFactory
AddressCorinium Avenue, Barnwood, Gloucestershire, GL4 3BW[1]
Coordinates51.867°N 2.2014°W / 51.867; -2.2014
Elevation25 m (82 ft)
Current tenants500 staff
Construction started1959
Completed1962
Cost£4m (1962)
ClientUnilever
OwnerUnilever UK
Dimensions
Other dimensions30 acres

History

The site was built by Unilever from 1959. The site was officially announced on Tuesday 16 April 1962.[2]

Unilever is the world's largest manufacturer of ice cream, and also has large manufacturing sites in Hellendoorn in the Netherlands, Saint-Dizier in France and Caivano in Italy. Nestle and Unilever have about a third of the global production each.[3]

The site was built to supply 25 million people in the west and north of England, and Wales. In the 1960s the site had over 1,000 employees, and was the world's largest ice cream factory.[4] When opening, the site could produce 90,000 gallons of ice cream a day and 2 million lollies a day.

Over five years in the late 1980s, £60m was invested on the site.[5]

Visits

In March 1995, the site was visited by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh; the Queen had visited the nearby GCHQ site (in the west of Cheltenham) at 10.30am, and she planted a commemorative tree at the Unilever factory. [6]

Structure

In the 1960s there was a two story office and production buildings, and a cone and wafer factory called Embisco. The site was opened as the Cotswold Factory.[7]

The site runs 24 hours a day, all week. The site is situated on the A417, to the west of the large A40 roundabout. It is around a mile west of junction 11a of the M5, and situated to the east of the main Cross Country Route railway.

The site employs over 500 people.

Production

The site makes around 5m Cornetto products and about 10m Magnum products a week. It makes around 1.5 billion ice cream products a year.

See also

References
  1. Companies House
  2. Times Saturday April 14 1962
  3. The Science of Ice Cream
  4. Times Wednesday April 18 1962, page 16
  5. Times Saturday 18 June 1983, page 2
  6. Times March 1995
  7. Times June 6 1961, page 61
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