MORE jobs could be created if a meat company gets the go-ahead to centralise its operations at a new site.C & K Meats, which already employs 50 people, wants to convert an existing 22,000 square feet industrial building on the nearby Eye Airfield into a new state-of-the-art abattoir and processing plant in order to expand its operations.

MORE jobs could be created if a meat company gets the go-ahead to centralise its operations at a new site.

C & K Meats, which already employs 50 people, wants to convert an existing 22,000 square feet industrial building on the nearby Eye Airfield into a new state-of-the-art abattoir and processing plant in order to expand its operations.

It has submitted a planning application to Mid Suffolk District Council.

The company's meat processing plant is currently at Brome while the abattoir is at Earsham, near Bungay.

The two premises employ a total of 50 people, who would all transfer to the airfield industrial estate.

Chris Burrows, who started C & K meats with his brother, Kevin, in 1994, said more jobs would be created by the relocation, initially only a few but the number was expected to rise year by year.

"We have basically outgrown our current premises and want to expand," he said.

The company slaughters more than 70,000 pigs, cattle and sheep a year at Earsham and much of the meat is processed for the catering trade in East Anglia.

A few goats are also slaughtered and the plant further processes wild boar shot on farms.

The Earsham plant, which started operation in 1961 and was acquired by C & K meats three years ago, is thought to be the only multi-species abattoir now left in Suffolk and one of only a few in East Anglia.

More than 80% of the animals slaughtered at Earsham are reared in East Anglia.

Exotic meats such as ostrich, produced in Scotland, and kangaroo and crocodile, imported from South Africa, are also processed by C & K meats which has its own retail shop in Woodbridge.

"There is a demand for crocodile meat from some outlets but none of them local. It is a white meat which looks a bit like fish – I have never tasted it," Mr Burrows said.

He said there was a possibility that waste products from the business could be fed into the nearby Fibropower power station, which currently burns chicken litter.