WEST Somerset butchers Gerald David and Family have bought one of Britain's most modern meat processing plant in a £900,000 deal. The Minehead-based butchers have stepped in to buy the former Triple S processing plant in Newton Abbott, which will provide a major back-up facility for their five shops in Somerset and Devon. The plant has lain idol for nearly a year after Triple S, a farmer-run enterprise launched to process and sell meat from South Devon farms, went into liquidation. The collapse of the operation shattered the dreams of dozens of livestock producers, who had invested heavily to build the massive plant to the most exacting hygiene standards attainable. It is the biggest single investment ever made by the family-run firm, which was started more than 30 years ago by Gerald David. The company intends to use the Newton Abbott plant to hang and bone carcases for its shops and for its mobile unit which clocks up hundreds of thousands of pounds sales a year selling West Country meat at major agricultural shows, horse trials, and other outdoor events. Mr David said: "An opportunity like this only comes along rarely. It was simply too good a deal to miss." He said the firm would retain its slaughterhouse in Porlock, but planned to move its main offices to the new site, as well as its bacon-curing and new pie- making operations. The whole enterprise will be managed by his sons, Simon, Alastair and Philip. Mr David said: "We are a very successful business but we are literally bursting at the seams with our current premises. "When we are preparing for one of our big shows, we can be boning out anything up to 30 cattle, 100 lambs and 12 pigs in the cutting room behind our shop in Minehead, and that puts immense pressure on the space and the staff. "It's going to feel like real luxury moving somewhere where we shall have so much space, and where the facilities are of such a high standard." Photo: Steve Guscott.