A MILK processing plant employing more than 600 people in the county has announced massive profits for last year.

The £22.8m profit announced by Robert Wiseman Dairies today, means the state-of-the-art milk processing plant, in Droitwich, is set to expand, with work on a new £7m facility due to start within months, employing a further 50 people.

The figure is 33 per cent higher than the result for the last financial year. Turnover also increased, by 5.4 per cent, to £391m.

The £35m facility, which opened in 2001, is a flagship plant for Glasgow-based Robert Wiseman Dairies, who took a risk building another facility in an industry analysts said was suffering from over-capacity. But in the past year, production at the dairy has doubled.

Graeme Jack, spokesperson for the firm, said Robert Wiseman had proved to the City the issue was quality of production, not quantity.

"These results are saying to the City that it's not over-capacity, it's quality of capacity," he said.

"Droitwich proves that if you build an excellent facility and fill it with good people, you can deliver what customers want."

"The multiple retailers want to buy on quality of production, quality of staff and reliability of distribution. Droitwich has become one of the main engines for growth for Robert Wiseman Dairies."

He said the company, which also has plants in Manchester, Aberdeen and Glasgow, planned to build a processing plant every 150-miles, with distribution centres "clustered" around them.

He said the Droitwich plant, which is the company's biggest and is considered state-of-the-art globally, not just in the UK, was a model for future development for the firm.

He added, however, the company had no announcement at this stage for the City regarding building a new plant.