St Peter's plans new £3m brewery

Increased demand for its beers has prompted Suffolk's St Peter's Brewery to look at building a new brewery at a cost of £3m.

The company's existing brewery, which is located in South Elmham, near Bungay, has reached the limit of its near-60,000 pints-a-week capacity and managing director Colin Cordy said it is looking at possible sites for a new facility.

"We're delighted that St Peter's beers are proving so phenomenally popular, not just across the UK but worldwide," said Cordy.

"Our big challenge though is to keep meeting that demand and the next natural step is to build a completely new brewery. The construction process would take up to a year and our aim is to start production at the new site about two-and-a-half to three years from now."

Cordy said the company was determined to stay in Waveney "because the area has been very good to us and we have a tremendously loyal and hard-working team of employees. We have 20 full-time-equivalent staff currently and the new brewery is expected to generate some further jobs".

The brewer's existing site is expected to be retained.

St Peter's was put up for sale in the summer of 2005 with a price tag of £20m but taken off the market several months later.

Production capacity was then boosted with an injection of £250,000-worth of investment and demand has kept growing ever since, said Cordy.

Much of the finance for the new brewery building will be provided by Barclays Business Banking, he added.