A NORTH YORKSHIRE pet food manufacturer has started work on a new 100,000sq ft distribution centre as it sets its sights on the £100 million sales mark.

Family-owned Wagg Foods is building the new facility on a ten acre site at its headquarters at Dalton Airfield Industrial Estate, near Thirsk.

The business, which can date its origins back to 1923, produces food for dogs, cats, rabbits and hamsters, and last year reported sales of £58.2 million and pre-tax profits of £6.1 million for the year ending June 30, 2014.

The figures were up £1.8 million, and £0.1 million respectively from the previous year.

Founder Bill Page said: "This is an exciting time for Wagg, we’re pleased to be able to continue to invest locally and expand our capabilities due to ongoing sales growth across the Wagg and Harringtons brands, both in the UK and globally."

Wagg Foods said it expects the new facility to be up and running for summer 2016.

Operations director George Page said: "Space is now at a premium at our two Yorkshire factories, having recently added more new packing lines but this distribution centre will erase that pressure and it allows us to continue delivering the great value food pet owners enjoy as well as provide the platform for the next phase of our growth plans."

Wagg Foods originally began in 1923 when the current managing director's grandfather set up an animal feed mill in Tadcaster.

The company was known as Page Feeds and supplied the farming community through four feed mills that were strategically placed around Yorkshire.

The Page family started to manufacture pet food in the 1980's, and by the following decade had stopped producing animal feeds for farming, and changed the business name to Wagg, with a move to a purpose built site at Topcliffe, near Thirsk.

During the 1990s the business expanded the complete dry dog food range, moved into small animal food and doubled its capacity by expanding the original factory site.

In 2002 it opened its dog food extrusion factory and kitted it out with the latest production equipment, capable of producing in excess of 40,000 tonnes of extruded product per year.

Five years later, in 2007, another development milestone was marked as Wagg doubled its pet food capacity, with a second extruder, and further increased total blending capacity. In 2011 tje business added a third extruder, more robots and more packing lines, followed by the launch of Wagg Cat in 2012.

Today Wagg's pet food products are stocked through a range of retailers in the UK, from supermarket chains to small independent pet shops, and can be found in more than 16 countries around the world.