Sign up to receive two FREE daily bulletin e-mails, as well as breaking news as it happens Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Plans to build a huge bottling plant in Foston supplying drinks for German supermarket giant Lidl have been revealed.

Mystery had surrounded the identity of the firm behind the plans and there had been speculation that Coca-Cola was involved.

However, the Local Democracy Reporting Service can now exclusively reveal that the company behind the bottling plant would be owned by and would supply Lidl with mineral water and soft drinks.

The proposals, for Dove Valley Park, have been put forward by PGFI III Limited, on behalf of MEG, part of the company which owns Lidl and fellow German supermarket chain Kaufland.

This would be MEG’s first production facility in Great Britain and would sit off the A50 Foston-Hilton-Hatton bypass.

It plans to move into a huge facility, which was approved by South Derbyshire District Council in November as part of a massive extension to Dove Valley Park.

(Image: Google)

The building which it is believed MEG will take on will be the largest of three units built as part of the expansion – 281,239 sq ft, the size of four football pitches.

Ahead of construction on the site, however, the company has applied to “sink” up to four boreholes to test and extract ground water for two years.

The bore holes which are proposed on the site would be gradually drilled in stages up to 250 metres in depth.

District council officers have recommended that members of the planning committee approve the plans at a meeting on Tuesday, April 16.

In a formal statement MEG said: “The MEG group of companies, a subsidiary of the Schwarz Group (Lidl and Kaufland), is planning to build a beverage production plant in Great Britain.

“The group has acquired the rights to a plot of land in the Midlands (Dove Valley Park, Derby).

“This land will be used to build a state-of-the-art beverage production facility, where mineral water and soft drinks will be manufactured for the British and Irish market.

“MEG has supplied beverages to British and Irish branches of Lidl for many years. The newly planned facilities will significantly shorten transport routes, helping to further improve the company’s carbon footprint and reduce costs.

(Image: Stride Treglown)

“Our production process is characterised by high ecological standards and the careful use of water resources.

“Compliance with strict legal requirements and official inspections is standard for MEG.

“Environmentally-friendly development and production are therefore key components of our commitment to quality.

“MEG has identified the sustainable use of the environment and natural resources as a top priority, which is why it consistently makes the most of modern and sustainable packaging, as well as efficient, forward-thinking logistics.”

The firm has not yet shed any light on how many jobs the plant will create, how much the new plant would cost to build and what quantities of water and soft drinks would be produced.

However, the approved Dove Valley Park expansion shows that the site in which MEG has applied to “sink” bore holes in would be served by 235 parking spaces.

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

Documents on Companies House for PGFI III Limited show that it has capital of £3.5 million as of February this year and was established in April 2018, just months before the approved industrial estate expansion.

The extension, set over 58 acres, represents the second phase of the business park, which was first established in the late 1990s on a parcel of land that was once part of the RAF Church Broughton airfield.

Muller Dairy, JCB Power Systems, Futaba International and Kuehne & Nagel already occupy large buildings on Dove Valley Park.