The food company Alpro, headquartered in Ghent, will invest 80 million euros this year, withmore than eighty percent in Belgium. The company is also recruiting 250 new employees, of which 200 will be in our country. Alpro expects the market of vegetable drinks and food to continue to grow strongly.
Alpro will invest in eight new production lines, bringing the total to 26. The plant in Wevelgem, the largest of Alpros’, gets five new production lines, and the remaining three will be in the UK. The almond and hazelnut drinks will now be produced in their own plants.
Since the expansion of the range of soy products, and since the launch of vegetable drinks based on almonds and hazelnuts, Alpro has already invested 75 million euros in new production lines and recruited 200 new people.
Alpro currently has 910 employees, of whom 80 per cent are located in Belgium. By the end of this year, there will be about 1,150 employees. The company has production sites in Belgium, France and the United Kingdom.
Soy is an exotic crop and Belgium’s soy consumption relies mostly on imports from SouthAmerica. Interestingly, since 2014, soy is also grown on Belgian soil in conjunction with an IWT-project to reduce imports from 800,000 to 600,000 tons. The project makes Belgian soy consumption more self-sustainable. Read more about this topic in our article on Belgian farmers growing soy.
