THE fire that broke out at the apetito factory in Trowbridge on Monday has forced the company to temporarily halt production at its pastry factory during a clear-up.

Staff who had to hastily leave what they were doing as the fire alarm sounded returned to work the following day, some to give the production line a thorough clean, while others have been redeployed to other departments.

The blaze, which happened on Monday at 2pm, saw eight fire crews being mobilised to the scene on Canal Road – two from Trowbridge, two from Warminster, and one each from Bradford on Avon, Melksham, Westbury and Frome.

There were also two aerial appliances, from Bath and Swindon, an incident command vehicle from Devizes and a water carrier from Pewsey in attendance.

Thick black smoke was seen billowing from a disused building next to the pastry production and packaging buildings, which are separate from apetito’s core business premises.

All 35 members of staff were evacuated and no injuries were reported.

Paul Freeston, chief executive officer of apetito UK and Canada, has since praised the work of both his staff and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service.

He said: “We have a fantastic team here and they responded they way they were trained to.

“I wouldn’t expect the staff to react any less than they did this week if anything else were to ever happen. We’ve almost come out stronger since the fire happened.”

Referring to the fire service he said: “From the moment they were called they were brilliant.”

An investigation was started on Tuesday by Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Services to determine the cause of the fire, and apetito is due to find out the results in the next few days.

Firewalls installed in the unused building are credited with helping to prevent the blaze from spreading to adjacent production and packaging buildings.

Mr Freeston said: “We have already take a lot of fire precautions with the firewalls. Fire sprinklers are not used on that particular site but are used on our main one.”

The production site for apetito’s healthcare, care homes and the meals on wheels business continues to operate normally and supplies to customers are unaffected.

Mr Freeston said that the affected site only contributed about eight per cent to the total production of the company, specifically pastry.

He added: “We think it will be two to three weeks before the site is up and running and we currently have five weeks’ worth of stock because the food is obviously frozen.”

Mr Freeston also confirmed that apetito was in the process of checking all equipment and utilities.