Berco ushers in new future

Jul 18 2008 by Paul Gannon, Evening Gazette

MIDDLESBROUGH-based Berco, which announced earlier this year that it was to move to a bigger base at Spennymoor, opened the doors on the new plant today.

Managing director Giovanni Micheletto said the manufacturing company’s plans to grow its workforce from 25 to 50 and boost output, was based on “carefully planned, sustainable” forecasts, despite an important part of its client base being in the hard-pressed construction industry.

All 25 of the existing members of staff have transferred to the new 150,000 sq ft unit on a site next door to and formerly run by Black & Decker.

Berco (UK) manufactures and distributes the undercarriages for crawler vehicles used in mining, construction and other industries.

The company said the move to a unit three times the size would allow for expansion, creating an extra 25 jobs in the next two years with more to follow.

Italian-owned Berco, part of the German multi-national ThyssenKrupp, moved to the UK in 2006, initially to distribute Italian-made tracks.

Earlier this year it began assembling products at Middlesbrough.

Announcing the move earlier this year, managing director Giovanni Micheletto said: “Since arriving in the UK, Berco has enjoyed enough success for us to plan our expansion, so we need larger premises capable of housing significant manufacturing operations.

“We are very happy to have been able to find those at Spennymoor with excellent transport links in an area where we believe we will be able to recruit locally in the coming years.

“We are tripling the size of our premises, so this will allow us to not only make initial expansion with the installation of a new assembly line, but also have room for further growth for years to come.”

In recent months Berco has added value for customers with product preparation and sub-assembly.

This has seen it shift its market position from supplying components to a supplier of full systems.