UK supermarket Morrisons has officially opened its Greenside on-site innovation centre as part of an investment programme.

Costing £1.4 million, the Greenside Innovation Centre was officially opened with the unveiling of a plaque by the Leader of Bradford Council, Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe and Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin.

The centre will “support the growth” of Greenside and the wider Morrisons manufacturing division – Myton Food Group. Morrisons also said it would allow for the development of new products to “present to prospective customers”.

Morrisons Greenside is a 400,000 sq ft manufacturing site, which the retailer said employs a 1,400-strong team and is producing 277 million packs of fresh food products across 44 production lines. 

According to the retailer, the Greenside site is the largest fresh food factory in the UK producing packed cheese, quiches, pies, sausages, gammon, cooked meats and bacon.

Rami Baitiéh, CEO of Morrisons, said: “We’re pleased to officially open our Greenside Innovation Centre here in the city of Bradford. At Morrisons we are proud food makers and we are always exploring ways in which we can showcase our expertise and develop new and exciting opportunities to take our products to a wider market.

“This new facility gives our fantastic team of chefs a space to create the high-quality, British products our customers want, using ingredients from our trusted farmers and growers.” 

The site has reportedly received “significant investment” in the past year, with an additional £6.6 million being used in cheese automation technology and a further £7 million being invested this year in sausage lines.