Up to 50 new jobs will be created when a food company opens a production plant in West Bowling later this year.

Hull-based CK Foods, which produces pizza products, hopes to open the poultry processing plant in the next few months, and recently received a grant of over £800,000 from the Leeds City Region fund to fit out its new factory at the Food Technology Park on Ripley Street.

Originally planned for a 2012 opening, the company said the 30,000sq ft plant, their first outside of Humberside, would finally be up and running in 2014. It follows recent announcements that other stalled schemes, the Broadway shopping centre and Citygate apartment complex on Manchester Road, were finally moving forward this year. The councillor in charge of regeneration at Bradford Council said she is “delighted” at the news. Councillors first approached the company five years ago when they discovered it was looking to expand, and convinced the firm to choose Bradford city centre.

CK Foods provides pizza products to wholesalers and fast food outlets throughout the UK and Ireland They had hoped to open the factory as a cheese production centre in 2012, but the plan was delayed. Forty jobs were originally envisioned for the plant, but that number has now risen to 50.

Omar Bhamji, managing director of CK Foods, said its opening was “a few months away.” He added: “It will be poultry processing, and there are going to be about 50 jobs. It will be the first facility we have outside of Hull. We chose Bradford because of the close proximity to the market and for the local skill set.”

He said there were some delays to the building’s construction, but that any problems had now been sorted. The company has now submitted a planning application to Bradford Council for the refrigeration and external plant machinery at the building.

Coun Susan Hinchcliffe, Bradford Council's executive member for Employment, Skills and Culture, said: “I’m delighted CK Foods have chosen Bradford.”