Forgot about this place until I saw that it had been sold for housing in the local news. Means I visited a little late, so all the machinery has unfortunately been ripped out. Their distribution centre down the road was demolished immediately after closure, as the land was bought up by Numatic, who's factory is right next door.
Apologies for photos not being the best, my camera flash is broken, and was very dark inside, so was a massive ballache
still a photo heavy report though 
The History
Oscar Mayer is a producer of ready meals serving the UK grocery market, boasting big name brands such as Sainsbury's. The company started out as a family run butcher owned by the Bigwood family in South London in 1935.
As they branched out into food manufacturing, they began to grow their property portfolio, acquiring a factory in Camberwell for food production in 1955. Following this they built a new factory in Peckham in 1965.
They acquired the Chard site in 1983, and the Oscar Mayer company as it is today was incorporated. They modified and extended the former abbatoir that had occupied the site since 1960, with prepackaged ready meal production beginning in 1985.
The company continued to grow, acquiring sites in Erith and Wrexham in 1993 and 2001 respectively. They became part of the 'More Than Meals' Group in 2017, which led to new investment in the company's sites (with the exception of Chard). The factories at Wrexham and Erith had extensions added in 2019, and a new site was acquired in Flint in 2020.
Oscar Mayer also had a distribution centre in Chard, which helped it to become the town's second largest employer with 860 employees. The factory closed in August 2021 after 38 years, due to the costs of modernising the facility being deemed too high to be financially viable.
The Explore
Visited with a non member, access is simple enough. We only managed the large production building, the smaller building which was known as OM4 was well sealed unfortunately.
Found a way in next to a loading bay full of shite. There was cladding and concrete strewn all over the floor, the whole place has been thoroughly stripped of copper, not too sure if it was metal fairies or the land owners when they tore out all the machinery as well.
Started making our way around the interior. There was very little to see, just empty production halls and empty fridges, with Covid-19 social distance material dotted all around. Few posters worth a look, but nothing significant really.
Use your imagination and pretend there's a machine still here...
We don't trust you to clock in, use your fingerprint...
Was the same story on every floor, other than the odd random find.
Who needs a sunbed when you can have an entire room?
Makes a nice change to see a lift that isn't a rusting hulk -
Approved chemicals -
It was the offices and boiler house that proved to be the most interesting parts of the explore.
At the top of the North Stair Tower we found the training office. Couple of interesting documents and an assortment of keys, room was mostly trashed though.
Proceeded to walk around the 3rd floor, empty room after empty room. Found a door leading to a walkway outside, saw a couple of transformers dumped in a corner of the yard, guarantee they've been totally stripped. One was surprisingly old though!
Walked over to the South Stair Tower and came across an admin office. Plenty of interesting documents here, with Individual Consultation Meeting documents from the redundancy process littered around, and lots of disciplinary documents.
Naughty -
There was still a few work related items to be found around the production floors -
We managed to find access into the Boiler House at the end of the 2nd floor. Definitely the best part of the explore for me, because it was full of control panels and gauges
Compressed air tank -
The lower floor looks to have been used as an MHE workshop also, which probably explains the shelving with lots of odds and ends stored there.
On our way back towards the entrance, we found a couple of meeting rooms hidden away that were signed as 'War Room', which we found rather amusing.
Made a phenomenal find in there though... Blueprints for the entire site! Definitely made for an interesting read, and helps to make sense of all the different areas, as with everything stripped out, it's hard to tell what each area was for.
Floor 2 -
OM4, the inaccessible building -
The demolished distribution building -
Oddities -
Drink enough water -
Who left the fridge open?
Packaging -
Wellies, free to a good home -
No drone shots this time unfortunately, my little DJI Mini 2 would be obliterated by the sodding seagulls that have taken up residence around the place.
Thanks for looking
Apologies for photos not being the best, my camera flash is broken, and was very dark inside, so was a massive ballache
still a photo heavy report though The History
Oscar Mayer is a producer of ready meals serving the UK grocery market, boasting big name brands such as Sainsbury's. The company started out as a family run butcher owned by the Bigwood family in South London in 1935.
As they branched out into food manufacturing, they began to grow their property portfolio, acquiring a factory in Camberwell for food production in 1955. Following this they built a new factory in Peckham in 1965.
They acquired the Chard site in 1983, and the Oscar Mayer company as it is today was incorporated. They modified and extended the former abbatoir that had occupied the site since 1960, with prepackaged ready meal production beginning in 1985.
The company continued to grow, acquiring sites in Erith and Wrexham in 1993 and 2001 respectively. They became part of the 'More Than Meals' Group in 2017, which led to new investment in the company's sites (with the exception of Chard). The factories at Wrexham and Erith had extensions added in 2019, and a new site was acquired in Flint in 2020.
Oscar Mayer also had a distribution centre in Chard, which helped it to become the town's second largest employer with 860 employees. The factory closed in August 2021 after 38 years, due to the costs of modernising the facility being deemed too high to be financially viable.
The Explore
Visited with a non member, access is simple enough. We only managed the large production building, the smaller building which was known as OM4 was well sealed unfortunately.
Found a way in next to a loading bay full of shite. There was cladding and concrete strewn all over the floor, the whole place has been thoroughly stripped of copper, not too sure if it was metal fairies or the land owners when they tore out all the machinery as well.
Started making our way around the interior. There was very little to see, just empty production halls and empty fridges, with Covid-19 social distance material dotted all around. Few posters worth a look, but nothing significant really.
Use your imagination and pretend there's a machine still here...
We don't trust you to clock in, use your fingerprint...
Was the same story on every floor, other than the odd random find.
Who needs a sunbed when you can have an entire room?
Makes a nice change to see a lift that isn't a rusting hulk -
Approved chemicals -
It was the offices and boiler house that proved to be the most interesting parts of the explore.
At the top of the North Stair Tower we found the training office. Couple of interesting documents and an assortment of keys, room was mostly trashed though.
Proceeded to walk around the 3rd floor, empty room after empty room. Found a door leading to a walkway outside, saw a couple of transformers dumped in a corner of the yard, guarantee they've been totally stripped. One was surprisingly old though!
Walked over to the South Stair Tower and came across an admin office. Plenty of interesting documents here, with Individual Consultation Meeting documents from the redundancy process littered around, and lots of disciplinary documents.
Naughty -
There was still a few work related items to be found around the production floors -
We managed to find access into the Boiler House at the end of the 2nd floor. Definitely the best part of the explore for me, because it was full of control panels and gauges
Compressed air tank -
The lower floor looks to have been used as an MHE workshop also, which probably explains the shelving with lots of odds and ends stored there.
On our way back towards the entrance, we found a couple of meeting rooms hidden away that were signed as 'War Room', which we found rather amusing.
Made a phenomenal find in there though... Blueprints for the entire site! Definitely made for an interesting read, and helps to make sense of all the different areas, as with everything stripped out, it's hard to tell what each area was for.
Floor 2 -
OM4, the inaccessible building -
The demolished distribution building -
Oddities -
Drink enough water -
Who left the fridge open?
Packaging -
Wellies, free to a good home -
No drone shots this time unfortunately, my little DJI Mini 2 would be obliterated by the sodding seagulls that have taken up residence around the place.
Thanks for looking
