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The Wall's Ice Cream Factory was a factory in Gloucester, UK, that produced ice cream products.

History
Work began on a thirty-acre ice cream factory in Gloucester in 1959. The new site was chosen because it was close to the proposed motorway link, and near the railway line. The factory opened in 1960 and cost around £4 million to construct. It included a production block, cold store, wafer factory, offices, and ancillary buildings. The site was highly mechanized and could produce many different ice cream products.

Factory Specifications
The production block of the Wall’s factory had a single-span roof stretching 162 feet across and was made using Silberkuhl. It gave the block the appearance of a large exhibition hall, rather than a factory, but allowed complete flexibility of the plant layout. It also allowed much more light into the building than a standard roof and meant working conditions were much better for staff. Working conditions were important to the design of the Gloucester site and colours in the main production areas were chosen to be delicate and reflect light well. In the wafer factory, ovens were painted black and blue to reduce the temperature of the room. The plan was to use colours that ‘not only make the best use of the natural and artificial illumination provided, but also have a beneficial psychological effect on the people who work in the plant.’ The cold store block was believed to be the largest in the world and could hold up to 49,000,000 portions of ice cream and was about the size of a football pitch. The cold store was one of the most modern in the world using the ‘forced circulation principle’ to continually push cold air around the building with fans. Fluorescent lighting was used as it emitted very little heat and was specially developed to climb to maximum brightness in as short a time as possible. A conveyer belt was also fitted to bring ice cream directly from the production plant to the cold store. It relied on a full workforce of eighteen men who, for the first time in a cold storage facility, had to wear specialised cold-weather clothing. The clothing cost £28 and consisted of a Norwegian string vest, a heavy sweater, trousers, a hooded jacket, boots, and mittens. In spring 1963 a new four-storey office block and extensions to existing offices were added to the site. The canteen and car park were also extended and an electricity sub-station added. The constructions were designed by Beard, Bennett, Wilkins, and Partners and built by John Laing Construction Limited. A computer was added to the ground floor offices.

1980s
In the early 1980s all Birds Eye Wall’s ice cream, frozen cakes, and desserts manufacture was transferred to Gloucester.

In 1987 Unilever Chairman Michael Angus opened the newly constructed Phoenix building, a £40 million investment. The building made Gloucester the largest modern ice cream factory in Europe, had a production hall the size of two football pitches, and produced more than 180 products. It held twenty ice cream lines, a water ice department with five water ice lines, an amenities block, cold storage, palletising facilities, and a cakes and dessert factory. On its opening, Michael Angus described the building as ‘a model of modern technology and science.’ During its first year of production, the Phoenix building used 43 million litres of milk, 130,000 kg of nuts, and five million kg of chocolate to produce 100 million litres of ice cream.

Before the Phoenix building’s official opening major ice cream trade customers and the Birds Eye Walls general trade sales force were given a tour of the new factory. They were shown ‘a new generation of Cornetto machines’ capable of producing 390 Cornetto cones a minute, and, 12 miles of pipes supplying the lines making Viennetta, Romero, Funny Feet, Catering Slice, and Family Sweets.

In 1988 a computerised automatic palletising system was installed between the factory and cold store of the Phoenix building, monitoring the lines and allowing ice cream weights to be assessed at vital points of production.

In January 1989 the Gloucester factory proved it was well ahead of the times by implementing a no smoking policy on site after a questionnaire showed many employees were concerned about the effects of passive smoking. Therefore the Gloucester factory became Birds Eye Wall’s first no-smoking site beginning a campaign for ‘clean air.’ The site also introduced a special package designed to help employees give up the habit.

In April 1989 it was announced that the Gloucester cold store had undergone a ‘revolution.’ New shift patterns and space-age technology were introduced to make the operation more comfortable and efficient. This included 24-hour on-site cover Monday to Friday, new heated Fork Lift trucks to keep operatives comfortable and ensure trucks could work in cold storage for longer; and computerised management control systems that would automatically prioritise the most important jobs. Radios were also installed in all trucks so they could get in touch with central control in the event of a problem.

1990s
The entire factory was closed for two weeks in July 1991 due to poor sales causing a build-up in stock. Sales remained low due to a cold and wet summer. However, during a third restricted production week, the weather changed. By the end of July, sales began to boom. Sales of Calippo jumped from 170,000 portions a week to 2,000,000, Feasts from 500,000 to 3,000,000 and Magnum from under 250,000 to 1,000,000. Demand on the factory was high but at the end of the summer the factory proudly announced that ‘no consumer has had to go without a Wall’s Ice Cream.’

In July 1991 two new chocolate bar lines were created; Promco II to produce the New Kick bar and Promco III, to produce other bars for the European Market.

In 1996 the factory celebrated gaining three major safety and environmental awards; The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Sector Award for the best UK factory in the food, drink, and tobacco industry; a commendation for achievement in RoSPA’s Sir George Earle Trophy for the factory with the best safety improvement record in the UK; and the British Standard BS7750 in Environmental Management which required businesses to manage and respond to its environmental impact in addition to complying with all the statutory regulations. The factory was the first British foods factory to receive BS7750 accreditation. This became International standard ISO14001 later that year.

Present Day
The original Gloucester factory was closed in 1997 and all manufacture was moved to the Phoenix factory. On 16 September 2002, Corporate Accounts (the last remaining office workers in the Gloucester buildings) moved to offices in the Phoenix building. The original factory buildings were sold on to a third party.

On 14 April 2003, Birds Eye Wall’s Limited became Unilever Ice Cream & Frozen Food Limited. All on-site signs and brandings at Gloucester and other factory sites were updated to reflect the change. Unilever announced its commitment to Birds Eye Wall’s products and planned to expand its range of ice cream and frozen foods. The Gloucester factory also announced it would specialise in making all 90ml Cornettos for the European market. This involved significant changes to equipment and technology in the Cornetto production line, ensuring the line became more efficient.