The company plans to cease operations at the Greenwich plant from September 30th this year. Although it has not made any official statement on the issue, it is understood that the decision follows the recent changes in the EU sugar regime which have made wheat glucose and sweeteners less competitive in the market. In addition, the plant is ageing, with reinvestment difficult to justify in the present circumstances. The Greenwich factory refines wheat flour produced at Syral’s other UK plant in Icklingham, Suffolk. The future of this 400,000 tonne intake in the absence of the London plant is unclear as it appears that Syral has yet to make a decision what to do with it. Syral bought the UK plants as part of a package of five factories from Tate & Lyle in 2007 in a £215m deal. This included
four wheat plants, located in Greenwich, Belgium, France and Italy together with a maize processing plant in Spain. Syral.

Syral closed in September 2009 with the loss of 150 jobs.


After seeing this place on flickr by jonathanapples and driving past this going to London for a few months I finally made the effort to go and visit. Once inside the site it is massive never knew that there was so much which has now sadly been demolished. After visiting Ipswich Sugar Factory Last year i have now noticed that these sugar factories have a distinctive whiff smell. Walked round to the main building we avoided a man in a ford transit. Once in the main building there was a lot to see. We saw security walking around. We went into another warehouse with the power still on. Most of the silos are still standing. We walked up the stairs which were unstable. We got up to the top of the stairs but not to the top of the concrete silos. But will return so to get to the top. The silos will now be demolished using a long reach unit which literally nibbles the concrete structures from the top down. This will be a slow uneventful process so there will be no big bang.

Main entrance


Main building left


Keep out


Machinery


Top of tanks


Sign


Final floor & Silos


Live warehouse


Looking towards the main entrance


Silos


canary wharf


millennium mills


green goddess


Hose