World's Most Advanced Paint Factory Officially Opens In North East

On Tuesday 12 September, we officially celebrated the launch of our new manufacturing unit in Ashington.

Designed to be the world’s most advanced and sustainable paint factory, our new £100 million plant will become the new centre of production for Dulux, the UK’s most popular paint brand. Once up and running at full capacity, the factory will be capable of doubling current UK production levels to 200 million litres per year, the equivalent of 80 million 2.5 litre cans of Dulux, in up to 33,000 different colours. To mark this exciting new chapter for AkzoNobel in the North East, we hosted an official launch event and invited local business people, community partners, stakeholders and members of the media to come along and celebrate with us as our very own VIP, Lewis the Dulux dog, ‘pushed the button’ to launch our production lines. Arriving at midday, guests enjoyed a marquee drinks reception, site tours and locally-sourced entertainment from the brilliant Ellington Colliery Brass Band, as well as speeches from keynote speakers including AkzoNobel’s newly appointed CEO, Thierry Vanlancker, managing director of AkzoNobel UK & Ireland, Matt Pullen and Ashington’s head of manufacturing unit, Jeff Hope. “Ashington has taken the best technology available globally, improved on it and put it all under one roof. It represents a significant step forward for the whole industry. I could not be more proud of the opportunity we were given to build this site in the beautiful county of Northumberland and the loyal, committed and hardworking team who successfully delivered this incredible project,” Jeff said. On behalf of the whole team at AkzoNobel Ashington, we would like to thank everybody who came along to celebrate this incredible milestone with us and everyone who helped to make the day such a huge success!