Millers of Speyside Extension to Premises

Due to business growth, Millers of Speyside is expanding their existing premises. At a cost of approximately £650K, the work is due to commence during April 2007 and is expected to take approximately 6 months to complete.
The expansion plans include:

• 2 New Chilled Areas
• Hanging Carcass Chill to hold up to 180 sides of Beef at any one time
• Box Chill Area that will hold up to 90 pallets.

This also provides an opportunity to refurbish existing work areas and will make the Boning and Production areas more streamline.

Work commenced on the extension at the beginning of May 2007. Some images of the work that has started can be found below:

Week 1- 1st May 2007

The contractors are setting up the site. Ground moving equipment, safety barriers and Porto cabins are being brought in. Clearing of the ground area has commenced towards the end of this first week.

Week 2 - 8th May 2007

The Ground Moving equipment is now being used to break up the ground area in front of the existing factory. So far so good, no disruption is caused.

Week 3-6 15th May - 15th June

As the build moves on you can begin to see the new building perimeter. Completion is still a long way off!

Week 7 - 18th-22nd June

Despite some awful weather this week including a dreadful thunder and lightning storm, the work is progressing well as you can see. The steel frame goes up slowly and carefully and it is certainly beginning to have quite a visual impact.

Week 8 - 25th - 29th June

Progress has been a bit slower this week as some of the workmen are on holiday. That said, some brick/block work is taking place and this will take soon take shape provided the weather stays quite favourable.

Weeks 9 - 11

As you can see from the photographs below, the extension is coming on well. Despite holidays and poor weather it is certainly taking shape. The area that is now covered will form the 2 new carcass chills. The vet’s office should be complete within the next couple of weeks and the Dock Leveller is to be installed later this week. This will allow easier loading access. Phase 1 is well on schedule and Phase II will commence shortly.

31st August 2007

Apologies for the delay in updating photos of the Millers Extension. The reason for this is that much of the work that has taken recently has been internal and therefore not much had changed on the external appearance until recently.
As reported earlier, the Vets Office, Meat Inspector's Office and Staff Canteen are now complete, much to the delight of all concerned. The keys were handed over to the Vet and Meat Inspector a few days ago and you will see from the photos below that Rita, our Vet and Colin our Meat Inspector have not quite "moved in".

Internally, the refrigeration units are in place in both of the new chills and the floor to Chill 1 has been levelled and concreted. The floor is now being worked on in Chill 2 as the photo below shows. It will not be long before this is complete.

Work is also taking place on the Dock Leveller both internally and externally. When complete and in operation, this will mean that Bone In products will be moved easily on rails to a mechanical arm that will bridge the gap between the rails and the transport. This will ensure that the level of manual handling is greatly reduced.

The photos below will show the work that is taking place on the Dock Leveller.

Here are some photos of the external view of the extension

Now for a bit of fun........ It is nice to see that will all this going on,there is still time for a laugh!

Here is Paul, Electrician, Campbell & McHardy playing his "Guitar".

How many workmen does it take to mix cement using an electric mixer?

Here is Duncan Reid, Millers Factory Manager experimenting with a new "Hair-do"

21 September 2007

Phase I is now complete! This means that the new chill areas and loading bay is finished and should be fully operational following the killing on Monday.

Here are some photos of the Loading Bay in operation.

Work has now commenced on Phase 2, which will be the Box Chill Area. There appears to be a "hive of activity" on the Phase II work area at the moment and we are sure that this area will quickly take shape. You will be able to see some photographs of the Phase II very shortly.

Here are some photos taken just before the new Chill Areas and Loading Bay were formally declared complete.

Duncan looking bemused at his new gadget in the Loading Bay!

5th October 2007 - Phase II

With Phase I complete and operational now, work has commenced on Phase II, which will be the new Box Chill Area. It is expected that this Phase will be complete in around 4 weeks. You will be able to see from the beautiful blue sky that the weather has been very good this week and this will help the workmen to keep things progressing.

These photos were taken at the beginning of the week and just before the safety netting went up. As you can see, the work taking place is mainly groundwork and is in anticipation of the roof going up.

You will see from the photographs below that the steel frame now has a more robust construction. Safety netting in the roof area was put in place before the new roof could be lifted and put in place. This was a Health & Safety requirement that had to be put in place before the roof could be lifted and constructed.

Here, the safety netting is being put in place, which is a Health & Safety requirement.

With the safety netting in place, you can see that the roof panels are now being lifted one by one and carried to the roof area and then slotted into their allocated place. A delicate operation but carried out by ease by the construction team.

And finally, the roof is completely in place......... and the sun is shining again!

Week Ending 19th October 2007

Now that the roof is in place, there seems to be no stopping or slowing down now!

The front of the building and one side is virtually complete now. The workmen appear to be concentrating most of their effort on concreting the floor inside. This is a very delicate operation and involves the workmen "dancing" around like ballerinas !! They have been sliding and gliding which is no mean feat, bearing in mind the size of some them.

The photos below will give you some idea of the internal size of the Box Chill area from floor to roof.

Whilst this is all taking shape, the surrounding area is being cleaned and tidied up.

Not often we see a man with a broom in his hand.....oh, did I really say that.