ABERGAVENNY Fine Foods has reassured customers that it will be 'businesses as usual' as quickly as possible after the food processing facility was severely damaged by a fire over the weekend.

Six crews, comprising 40 firefighters from the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, spent four hours tackling the blaze in the early hours of Sunday morning They were first called to the scene at the Gilchrist Thomas Industrial Estate in Blaenavon at 3.56am on Sunday morning.

Crews used four main jets; one hydraulic platform used as a water tower; seven breathing apparatus; a water bowser and a water ladder to bring the blaze under control.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated by fire investigation officers.

The premises were unoccupied at the time, and no one was hurt.

A spokesman from Abergavenny Fine Foods praised the fire service for attending the scene "extremely quickly" and said: "I would like to thank the firefighters for their responsiveness, and their efforts to protect our facility.

"The company is working with the emergency services to ascertain the cause of the fire.

"There has been damage to the unit, and production at the site has been affected.

"However, we have been able to maintain production at our other site, at Castle Meadows Park, Merthyr Road, Abergavenny.

"We are now working to restore production to 100 per cent across the company as soon as possible, and I would like to thank my staff for their efforts in working to achieve this."

He added: "While we have been obviously affected by this fire, we would like to reassure our customers that we are working towards ‘business as usual’ at Abergavenny Fine Foods as quickly as possible.

"This is a key time of the year for us, we have a substantial order book, and the company has recently invested £1.2 million in a new dairy to increase our capacity. "We will not let this fire deter us from our strategy to grow Abergavenny Fine Foods even further in the future."