THERE have been so many developments at what is now the biggest ice- cream factory in Europe that it is difficult to keep track of them.

The pace of growth has been such that the North Yorkshire operations of Richmond Foods, whose latest annual sales have been boosted by the hottest summer for eight years, now occupy a sizeable chunk of Leeming Bar industrial estate.

The company has come a long way since Jonathan Ropner, a Bedale businessman and farmer, bought Cardosi's, a Thornaby ice-cream manufacturer, in 1984. It had four employees and a first year turnover of just £180,000.

In the year to September 28, 2003, turnover was £127m, up 9pc on the previous 12 months, and the firm employs just under 300 people.

Based on volume, Richmond Foods is the country's biggest ice-cream maker, producing more than half of all that we eat, and it hopes to repeat that achievement with the value of its sales.

Richmond's four sites - two in Yorkshire, one in Plymouth and another in Cornwall - concoct 225m litres of ice-cream a year.

It is easy to be blinded by figures at Leeming Bar, which manufactures 150 different products on 11 production lines operating on a 24-hour system.

Equipped with 24,000-litre bulk ingredient silos and what is said to be the world's largest spiral freezer, a fearsome piece of shining metallic space-age gear, the factory accounts for about 125m litres of the company's total annual output.

Richmond chief executive James Lambert forecasts that, by 2007, there will be £100m- worth of ice-cream capacity at Leeming Bar. Only an accountant could really appreciate that.

A new £5m factory was commissioned there two years ago and Mr Lambert already envisages redevelopment of the old one, which is still functioning.

He is unperturbed when asked whether the company was getting so big it might run out of space at Leeming Bar. "You can always re-use space more effectively," he says.

Company chairman Ross Warburton says sales growth during the past 12 months has been underpinned by a £27m capital investment programme about to enter its third year.

At Leeming Bar, this will mean the commissioning, early in the new year, of a new £5m production line capable of churning out about 750,000 ice-cream cones every day.

About 150 boxes a minute will be whisked away to the packing area from which, because Richmond has no storage space on site, they will be taken by articulated lorry to the distribution firm of Reed Boardall at Boroughbridge.

In 2003 Richmond saved about £1.5m by having all the pipework and electrical equipment for a new, fully-automated mixing plant at Leeming Bar designed and made by its own technical staff, instead of hiring outside firms.

It used to be, and probably still is, the dream of every schoolboy to visit an ice-cream factory. Even on one of the coldest days of the year, the surroundings are surprisingly warm.

A tour at Leeming Bar, which calls for a hair net, a hard hat, a white coat and special shoe coverings - all in the interests of hygiene - reveals a perpetual carousel of conveyor belts with machines remorselessly filling tubs and cartons which wend their way to be disgorged for attention by the human element.

One line produces a tub of ice-cream impregnated with Smarties, a result of Richmond's acquisition of part of the Swiss-owned Nestl company in 2001.

About 44pc of employees at Leeming Bar are Kurdish refugees who have decided they are willing to work to help the economy of the country which has given them sanctuary.

Human resources director Peter Pickthall says there can be a language barrier, but this is overcome by employing a worker with a good command of English to translate company documents on health and safety, practical hygiene and product quality.

Mr Pickthall says everyone has the same opportunity to rise to other levels in the factory or to progress through the business. He adds: "We don't just see people as cannon fodder for the factory."

Richmond has implemented ground-breaking training programmes at Leeming Bar to help the increasing number of foreign employees to develop their skills.

It has become one of the few regional firms to offer the bespoke English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses, involving tutors from North Yorkshire community education department and Thomas Danby College at Leeds.

As well as food hygiene, the course covers such aspects as the alphabet, conversation, factory signs and symbols, shopping, food and drink.

Richmond is a follower of other development skills, including NVQs for everyone from factory workers to management, and Mr Lambert says: "The way to go is to create better quality jobs, with higher skills and higher trained people. The better skilled people are, the more the production."

Last October Richmond, which has landed a lucrative contract with the national UGC cinema chain and also sees its product sold under the labels of leading supermarkets, continued its inexorable growth with the £3.9m take-over of Oldfields, a Sheffield-based bulk ice-cream supplier.

This followed a merger in 1998 with Treats, a Leeds supplier of frozen confectionery, and a take-over of the ice-cream business of Allied Foods two years later.

Where will it all end