A GRAIN merchant has secured a £2.5 million loan to buy two more sites and expand its storage capabilities.
Alexander Inglis & Son (AIL), run by former Scotland rugby captain Jim Aitken, is benefiting from the global rise in demand for Scotch whisky.
Around two-thirds of the three million tonnes of grain produced in Scotland is used in the malting and distilling industries.
Now AIL has acquired a grain store in the Scottish Borders and one in Northumberland in a deal backed by Santander. It has a combined storage capacity of 110,000 tonnes of grain, which is enough to produce 50 million litres of whisky.
It brings total capacity at the £50m-turnover East Lothian business to 250,000 tonnes.
Across the two sites, 12 people will transfer across, with AIL planning to create a small number of jobs.
Mr Aitken, who bought the business in 1985 having led Scotland to the Grand Slam the previous year, is also in negotiations over a further site with an additional 100,000 tonnes of capacity.
He said: "The investment will enable us to expand the business. The business is all about securing grains at specified periods and being able to bring it up to standard and hold it until you can market it.
"This gives us cover across the length and breadth of the country and into the north of England.
"The whisky industry is one of the success stories in Scotland at the moment and we are working off the back of that."
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