GLOBAL MEAT & POULTRY PROCESSOR

A 30 week £2.1 million disaster recovery project following a major fire at the company’s Suffolk production site.

A major meat and poultry processor, our client works with a huge network of farmers to produce their diverse range of products on a bespoke and generic basis for customers across all levels the food industry. Having earned a reputation for dedication to quality and customer service, they continue to innovate and develop their business to provide the best possible products.

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A major fire at the organisation’s Suffolk production site created significant operational issues. Disasters such as these can have devastating impacts on businesses. It is therefore vital for the situation to be assessed and for damage limitation strategies to be implemented as quickly as possible. When the Group Operations Director contacted us hours after the fire, we actioned an immediate response.

Within 8 hours we had a project team on-site ready to confront the situation. Our foremost focus was to fully manage the complex disaster recovery so that the site operation team could focus on the ongoing running of the site and business to ensure supplies to their clients were maintained.

We began by coordinating investigations and conducting careful site surveys to make the fire damaged building safe. We also began liaisons with insurers in order to reach a settlement as soon as possible. Determining that demolition was the most suitable option as the result of the fire damage, we planned, managed and implemented the considerable demolition and clearance operations of the 18,000m² production space across a 32 acre site.

This process involved procuring a demolition contractor and coordinating the impact of the demolition across a complex array of utility services which criss-crossed the site. We had to reconfigure a HV ring main, and gas and water services in order to remediate the site to construction standards for future use. The project was delivered successfully, on programme, under budget and with a 100% safety record.

The fire created significant operational issues for the site and a complex series of activities had to be put in place quickly in order for us to maintain supplies to our client. I turned to IFP for support in the hours after the fire and their response was nothing short of miraculous, placing a project team on site within 8 hours of making the phone call. IFP then worked with us to make the fire damaged building safe, reach settlement with the insurer and managed the process to deliver a new site ready for development of a new facility. IFP’s involvement allowed the site operation team to focus on the on-going day to day running of the site, which meant the complex activities associated with the disaster recovery exercise could be left in the safe hands of IFP’s management team.