A FOOD supplies firm is leaving Ross-on-Wye after 45 years, as its owner says there is no space locally to expand.

Harald and Jose Bosse set up Bosse Interspice in Ross in 1980, from where it continues to supply ingredients to food manufacturers and restaurants.

Harald and Jose originally teamed up with Hagesud Interspice, one of the world’s oldest and leading suppliers of quality raw food flavours, seasonings, herb and spice products, and successfully delivered them to the UK and Republic of Ireland markets.

Their customer-driven philosophy meant that everything they do must be ‘customer driven’ and to ‘continuously look to evolve with the market’.

But now the firm is finding its premises in the town’s Ashburton industrial estate ‘extremely tight for space’, according to their son, the firm’s managing director Jensen Bosse.

“We would have stayed in Ross if there had been units or land, but it’s all going for housing rather than industrial,” he said.

“I know of other companies who have already moved for the same reason.”

He added this was partly down to the government’s prioritising of new housing nationally.

“But you have to find jobs for those people so they can pay their rent or mortgage and put food on the table,” he said.

Now planning permission has been granted for a newly built 1,250-square-metre building to house the firm at a vacant plot within the Hereford Enterprise Zone in Rotherwas.

A planning application made by the managing director of the zone, sought approval for the building on what is known as Plot eight of the zone’s North Magazine area.

Different planning rules apply to the enterprise zone, making it easier to get new commercial developments off the ground.

Jensen Bosse said: “We will all have to travel more. But the world keeps turning and we have to react to our and our customers’ needs.”