Paul Ibirogba
Former model Heather Mills has announced the opening of a factory for her vegan company VBites that will create approximately 300 new jobs.
Plant-based meat and dairy alternative brand VBites is set to create products out of a 180,000 square foot factory that was used by Walkers Crisps in the past.
This move will create roughly 300 new jobs in the northeastern English town of Peterlee.
Mills said part of the reason for the company’s expansion is due to the growing demand for vegan products.
“After 25 years of trying to educate people the future is plant-based, they are finally listening,” said Mills to Food Navigator.
She added that “after huge sales of hundreds of millions of pounds in American plant-based companies, corporates are now interested.”
In business since 1993, VBites is one of the oldest and most well-established vegan food companies.
VBites offers a wide range of vegan meat and dairy alternative products, including fish fingers, burgers, cheddar, mozzarella, and pepper jack cheese, roasts, sausages, meat pies, pizza and even plant-based lamb.
The products now retail in over two dozen countries, and VBites will use the Peterlee factory to produce vegan meat products for worldwide distribution.
“This is really exciting news and it’s particularly encouraging to see that there will now be more than 300 job opportunities create at the old Walkers site, in the nature future,” said Carl Marshall, Durham County Council’s cabinet member for economic regeneration.
“We’re thrilled that Heather Mills is choosing to bring jobs back here to the North East and making the most of our talented workforce.”
VBites now owns more than 600,000 square feet of factories in the UK, Mills said.
The Peterlee factory is set to open this fall.
