2 Sisters Food Group

2 Sisters Food Group identified the requirement for a new Quality Assurance (QA) Laboratory to support their Technical Services department located at BioCity Nottingham. Their existing QA Facility, also located at BioCity, was of insufficient size to cater for an ever increasing workload due to the growth of the business.

The new QA Facility, located on the first floor of the adjacent Larus Building at BioCity, would provide modern and efficient microbiological QA facilities for the existing 2 Sisters Food Group production sites and give extra capacity to fulfil future business needs.

Following recent projects providing modern, QA laboratory facilities for other food manufacturers, the Austin Company was appointed by 2 Sisters Food Group to provide multidisciplinary preliminary and detailed design services together with procurement and construction management services.

The new QA Microbiology Facility, with a gross floor area of 650 m², incorporates a number of specialist environments:

• Temperature-controlled rooms including walk-in incubator rooms (25.0°C to 41.5°C), two walk-in sample fridges (1°C to 5°C) and a walk-in “media” room (3°C to 8°C).
• CL2 Microbiology Laboratory and associated Preparation and Plate Reading laboratories
• Media preparation, autoclave room
• Support offices, meeting room and rest/ coffee area.

Due to the nature of the existing building and to facilitate the incorporation of the five new floor-mounted autoclaves and high density roller racking, the initial stage of the fit-out works involved the strengthening and “making good” of the existing floor slab. In addition, new drainage to the autoclaves and laboratory areas was incorporated within the existing floor slab, making use, wherever possible, of existing horizontal floor service voids.

Further constraints imposed by the existing building, which influenced the design and implementation process were:

Low existing floor to floor heights, necessitating a relatively low ceiling height, requiring a carefully coordinated and meticulously planned services design solution

The overall compact nature of the site and the fact that the works were being undertaken on the first floor of an occupied building, meant that the design and site works were planned around the requirement to reduce, where possible, disruption to other building users.