As children, we all hope that one day they will work in an actual chocolate factory. It’s Roald Dahl’s fault!

For our team, this lifelong dream came true when the contractor, MSB Group from Newent, brought us on board to assist with technical design, construction drawings, site inspections and as principal designer for the extension of Magna’s factory in Telford. Magna is a company that specialises in chocolate-moulded confectionery, supplying high-quality, precision-made products to businesses across the industry.

They had us at ‘chocolate’!

With planning consent had already been secured for the extension before we came on board, the project presented us with several challenges.

For instance, Magna’s operation is an intense one. More than 20,000 grams of chocolate are transformed into delectable treats here every year, with very specific market-driven deadlines such as Easter and Christmas.

So one of our major challenges was that the extension had to be constructed in a precise time slot between manufacturing runs, thereby ensuring the factory could keep running and the chocolate could hit the shelves precisely when they were supposed to. With the factory’s busiest time being Easter, the team innovated a solution whereby the building was split into two phases, to ensure the factory remained functional, and guarantee access to the huge chocolate tanks, which are in constant use.

Another key challenge was to ensure that all the necessary regulations were met. As well as the usual building regulations, we closely observed the Food Safety Standards. As the building is a huge open space, we also liaised with the local fire service on fire escape and suppression systems as well as following British Standard 9999 for the fire safety design.

This all meant that the design and the build required incredibly close collaboration between all the parties.

Collaboration is one of the four principle values of Sutton Cox. We always treat our clients as partners, and this means we build trust, open communication and mutual respect into every project, because strong relationships always lead to the best outcomes. Sweet dreams are made of this!