Work is set to start on a multi-million pound high speed freezing production line which will safeguard hundreds of jobs at a West Norfolk food factory.

Frozen food giant Pinguin has said the new freezing production line at its King's Lynn site will be capable of dealing with 16 tonnes of vegetables per hour.

A new 10,000 pallet cold store, a more environmentally friendly biological effluent plant and a new development centre are also being built at the food firm's site beside the Hardwick Roundabout.

The cost for these works is expected to be more than �13m but will help protect the 343 permanent and 200 seasonal jobs at Pinguin's only Norfolk base.

Peter Denolf, UK managing director, said: 'This exciting investment plan keeps Pinguin at the forefront of frozen food production in the UK and will allow us to continue to offer our customers a highly efficient service as well as top quality British produce.'

The announcement comes after a plan to build a new Sainsbury's superstore on part of the food firm's 44-acre site was approved last year.

It is expected that the 70,000sq ft superstore will create 300 jobs with the money Pinguin received from the deal being used to fund its new development on the site.

The news also comes after the company commissioned the building of a new frozen bean production line last year and teamed up with Partner Logistics, which opened one of Europe's biggest cold storage facilities in Wisbech last year.

The King's Lynn factory, which was built in the 1960s, produces frozen own-label vegetables for major supermarkets including Sainsbury's, Tesco, Morrisons and Somerfield.