Former Arla dairy plant contents up for auction this month

The site was closed in July last year
The site was closed in July last year

Machinery and equipment from Arla's former dairy plant Hatfield Peverel, Essex are to be auctioned off this month.

The site was closed in July last year following their decision to concentrate production at its new billion-litres-a-year super-dairy at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

The auction is attracting international attention from a wide variety of potential bidders.

Paul Cooper, a director of North-Lincolnshire-based CJM auctioneers, said: "The Hatfield Peverel site is being cleared and perhaps redeveloped for housing so we have been instructed to sell everything.

The equipment included in the auction could go to anywhere in the world
The equipment included in the auction could go to anywhere in the world

"At its height over 250 people were employed on the site which, considering how automated modern dairies are, provides some indication of the size of the operation.

"The auction will include the processing plant, machinery and equipment as well as the bottling plant, refrigeration equipment and a large number of silos and tanks. We’ll also be selling the contents of the engineering workshop, the stores, the offices and the canteen."

Everything in the auction is of interest to people in the dairy processing industry but equally there is a lot of extremely good kit involved that has much wider applications.

The equipment included in the auction could go to anywhere in the world.

The contents of the sale include bottling lines, a refrigeration plant, tanks & Silos up to 113,000 litres, packing machinery, offices and workshop equipment.