Switzerland-based food maker Hero Group is to open a jam production factory west of Zurich next year.

Hero plans to open the site in Lenzburg, 37km west of the Swiss capital and where the company has its head office, next spring.

Thomas Sprenger, head of Hero’s domestic foodservice business, said the company plans to spend CHF35m (US$36.5m) on the plant, which he said will become the group’s “jam competence centre”.

Speaking to just-food at the SIAL food-industry exhibition in Paris today (17 October), Sprenger said the factory would make “jam portions” – products sold in small packages – for the foodservice and retail channels in Switzerland and in key export markets.