Seventh Nordic installation brings in £160K for baling specialist

EAST-Lancashire baling system designer and manufacturer Whitham Mills, has completed its seventh installation for Norway’s largest producer of wool – Nortura – for £160K.

The Norwegian multi-billion pound agricultural co-operative is owned by 18,700 farmers and is responsible for almost 80% of the country’s wool production, the majority of which is sold to the UK.

Nortura has repeatedly called on Whitham Mills’ expertise since it began trading 10 years ago. This latest order has seen the Todmorden-headquartered  UK company install a 50RBB high-capacity wool baler, associated 900mm wide feed conveyor and a cart tipping system, at Nortura’s plant in Forus, on the country’s south coast.

The system, designed and built in the UK, can produce bales of up to 500kg at a rate of 10 tons per hour and is proving increasingly popular with companies handling large volumes of textiles and wool products.

Whitham Mills managing director said: “We’ve enjoyed an excellent trading relationship with Nortura over the past decade. That they continue to call on us without hesitation is testament to the sound engineering and thorough post-sales care that Whitham Mills has built a reputation upon.

“Selling into Europe has always been a key tenet our growth strategy and the Brexit decision won’t change that. We’ve also had considerable interest in our balers from Australasia and are now actively seeking distribution partners in the area.

“Given the size of the wool industry in that part of the world, we’ll monitor the development of any new trade deal with interest.”

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