Seafood and mortuaries provide growth for AFOS
A COMPANY that manufactures specialist equipment for hospital mortuaries and smoked salmon production has won more than £2.5m of new orders.
Hull-based AFOS plans to create new jobs on the back of the new deals and is expecting further orders in the coming months.
The 60-year-old company manufactures specialist equipment to the fish and food industry and has a separate division supplying laboratory and mortuary equipment to the health sector.
Its food division has been chosen by Tassal – the largest farmed salmon producer in Australia – to double its smoking capacity with an order for two further kilns, following a successful kiln upgrade programme last year.
In addition, new defrosters have been supplied to Hull-based Midgely’s and New England Seafood in Surrey.
The medical division is working with health trusts and PFI consortia – including Laing O’Rourke and PPJV – across the country supplying equipment to six hospital projects.
The boom in orders has seen an engineer and a marketing executive recruited and two more engineers will be taken on soon.
The success of AFOS, which has its headquarters are on Priory Park West in Hull, is also benefiting a string of supply companies across Yorkshire.
AFOS sales director Peter Martin said: “The last few months have been phenomenal for us and all the signs are that it will continue which is good news for us and our suppliers many of whom are based in the Hull area.
“We have built up an exceptionally strong brand over the last 60 years with a reputation for delivering cost effective and high quality solutions.
“Our food division has performed beyond expectation in the last six months with orders approaching £1m coming from the highly respected Tassal company in Tasmania which has a turnover in excess of $300m (Aus).
“On the medical side we are becoming the preferred choice for the many PFI consortia and National Health Service in providing state of the art mortuary, laboratory and pathology facilities.
“The outlook overall is very promising with strong demand for our products across a number of markets including the UK, Europe and Australia,” he added.
