Title: New purpose built factory for Roberts Mart
Publication: Commerce and Industry
Date: February 2004
News homepage

For more than 120 years Leeds-based Roberts Mart, one of the UK's leading producers of plastic and paper packaging, has occupied the same site in the city.

But now the company is preparing for a move - to a very large purpose built, state-of-the-art factory just down the road.
Roberts Mart chairman and managing director John Roberts, the fifth generation of his family at the company's helm, cut the first turf on the site of the new factory at Thornes Farm Business Park, off Pontefract Road, in a ceremony watched by his sons William and Ben who are also members of the board.
Sinking the first spade into the ground signalled the beginning of a new era for Roberts Mart - and of a new push to increase its presence in a competitive market place. The company started life as a paper merchant in 1852, operating from premises in Lady Lane, Leeds. But three decades on came a move to Bank Mills, in East Street, where Roberts Mart has remained. But come 2004, when the new premises are ready, the old mill will be converted into a complex of almost 200 up-market apartments.
The company's seven-acre site at Thornes Farm will house a single storey 80,000 square foot of office space with 20,000 square foot of office space on two floors, all of which will be a far cry from running the business on a six floor building built in the 1820's.
The new premises will give the company a better chance of winning orders in an increasingly competitive field as the development is expected to be followed by the securing of BRC/IOP accreditation, a hygiene standard that is becoming a must for any business in the food retail sector,
It will mean Roberts Mart's new premises being recognised as one of the most hygienic and environmentally friendly factories in the country.

News homepage