Former CBI director general Lord Digby Jones to attend opening

The Ebac Group is set to officially open its factory and launch the Norfrost chest freezer range at an event with former CBI director general Lord Digby Jones.

Lord Digby Jones will be taking part in a debate on the future of manufacturing and will be joined by Ebac managing director Pamela Petty, North East regional director for the EEF – The Manufacturers’ Organisation, Liz Mayer and Dr Jon Helliwell director of the Centre for Process Innovations. It will be chaired by Graham Robb, North East chairman of the Institute of Directors.

Ebac bought the Norfrost brand in 2013, has set up the factory at Aycliffe Business Park, County Durham, and supplies Argos and Amazon.

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Lord Jones will be returning to Ebac for the first time since filming BBC2’s Digby Jones: the New Troubleshooter, in which he worked with Ebac as it looked to establish its new line of freezing.

Pamela Petty, managing director of Ebac, said: “The event will mark a major milestone in the Ebac Group, as well as in UK manufacturing, with the return to production of a very popular brand of appliance. These are very exciting times for Ebac and it is fantastic that Digby has chosen to come back and help us to celebrate.

“With the return of domestically-manufactured chest freezers to the UK and our washing machine production facility set to be up and running soon, we feel it is a very interesting time to have the debate on the future of manufacturing. Here in the UK, we need to be making more things, whether that is high tech or low tech, high volume goods, but it will be interesting to hear what the rest of the panel think.”

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