Fullwood is probably the only British farm equipment manufacturer that has more than 200 years of history and is now the major company in a big international group.

Dairy farmers are familiar with the company as a specialist manufacturer of milking machines and equipment, but the Fullwood Packo Group, of which Fullwood Ltd is a member, also makes industrial equipment including products for the pharmaceutical and food-processing industries and is a specialist in stainless-steel fabrication and surface treatments.

The group, with its 21st-century, high-tech engineering products has come a long way from the company Matthew Fullwood founded in London in 1785. It started by importing annatto seed for dyeing leather and foodstuffs such as cheese – an early link with dairy farming. His business prospered and he extended the product range to include rennet, also used in cheese production.

A member of the Bland family joined the company in 1835, bringing a name change to Fullwood and Bland. The holding company that controls the milking machine company, Fullwood Ltd, plus another 12 Fullwood Packo Group companies is still called RJ Fullwood & Bland.

A major development in 1918 was the decision to move rennet production from London to a new site in Ellesmere, Shropshire, and links with dairy farming increased during the 1920s when Fullwood & Bland imported cream separators and other dairy equipment.

Milking machine production started at Ellesmere in 1940 and expanded rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s as more dairy farmers abandoned hand milking and installed new equipment to meet increasingly stringent hygiene standards and to cope with herd expansion.

Making milking machines, not just for cows, but for sheep, goats, buffalo and camels too, remains the biggest of Fullwood Packo’s three divisions, accounting for half of the group’s turnover. The trend is increasingly towards robotics and Fullwood scored a major success with the Merlin automatic milking equipment it introduced in 1997.

An integral part of Merlin is Fullwood’s Crystal herd management software, which is also available for conventional parlours. Crystal works by identifying animals that do not conform to selected criteria such as yield, conductivity, body weight or activity so that they can receive special attention.

Commercial links with the Belgian Packo business started in 1968. Fullwood & Bland formed a joint company with Packo, an old-established manufacturer of farm equipment including milk cooling tanks. But in 1994 Fullwood & Bland took over the Packo company, adding its cooling products to the milking machine business.

Company: Fullwood Ltd, a subsidiary of the Fullwood Packo Group

HQ: Ellesmere, Shropshire

Owned by: Privately owned

Employees: 620 (Fullwood Packo Group)

Annual turnover: £80 million plus (Fullwood Packo Group)

Principal products: Fullwood Ltd makes milking machines and dairy equipment for export to more than 50 countries, accounting for 50% of group sales. Other group companies make and distribute cooling equipment and industrial products and are specialists in stainless steel products.