WHEN engineers working on Sappi Europe's new £30 million paper machine sit down for lunch, there's at least four ways to ask for the salt.

For the workers, busy putting together a machine which will almost double paper production at the Blackburn mill, are over here from Germany, South Africa and Switzerland.

And local workers, from Blackburn, have been visiting the company's sister plant in Hanover to learn how to reconstruct the state-of-the-art machine.

The new machine will boost the mill's annual output from 50,000 to 80,000 tons when it begins production in March.

Sappi, which originated in South Africa and has a base in Germany, chose their Blackburn mill to site the new machine because of the size of the Feniscowles location.

General Manager Doug Reid said: "This is a significant investment for the company. Blackburn was picked because it has always been seen as a mill with potential and there is plenty of room for expansion.

"Although we won't need to recruit workers, the investment will secure jobs in the area."

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