The North Wales peanut butter success story

IN Wrexham it isn’t just the now world-famous football club which is riding the crest of a wave.

- By JONATHON HILL

On a building inside the unremarkable Redwither business park a team of 60 people at Meridian are producing something they believe is the finest peanut butter in the country.

‘The business now turns over a multi-million pound profit each year and is split between production and milling and packaging. The once small business which was founded by Andrew Jedwell near his home at the former site in Corwen in the 1980s is now making a fortune.

‘The butter isn’t the kind you'd find in any shop, packed with palm oil and preservatives. It’s simply nuts including the skins, crushed, meaning the pastes retain more fibre and micronutrients, and is - relatively - straightforward to produce.

Andrew, who had moved to North Wales from London, was ahead of his time in that even back then he wanted the nut butter created by the company to be pure and as unprocessed as possible. His butters were the first on the market in the UK to be 100% nuts and in the age of clean eating the business continues to grow. Working in production is 67-year-old master roaster Chris Ullein. The ex-swimming pool manager from Corwen has worked for the company for 27 years and manages the roasting process.