Nestlé Canada breaks ground on $51.5m ice cream plant expansion

The increased investment comes at a time when its North American ice cream business has been sluggish, registering a 7% sales decline (globally) between 2016 and 2017 due to a challenging trading environment and poor weather causing weakened consumer demand.

However, Nestlé is still aiming to continue innovation within the category and bring new products to the market.

The recently-announced expansion will include a 9,000-square-foot increase to its factory’s current footprint, creating more capacity and future growth of Hӓagen-Dazs and other ice cream products, with production planned for early 2019.

The expansion project and the resulting production will also increase ingredient, packaging, and raw material supplier purchases, Nestlé Canada said.

Expansion of the London facility began in early 2016, with reconfiguration and consolidation of productions lines to increase capacity for Hӓagen-Dazs followed by the addition of a second Drumstick production line. The third phase helped to modernize the existing processes to allow for greater flexibility within the production lines.

Nestlé Canada received C$390,000 (US$302,000) in funding from the South Western Ontario Development Fund during an early phase of the expansion that went towards enhancing the cleaning technology for each production line.

The expansion will create 12 new jobs and move 45 seasonal employees to full-time positions.