Work has started on a £1million new home for iconic Welsh food producer Halen Môn Anglesey Sea Salt.

Award-winning builders Anwyl Construction will complete the state of the art new production plant and visitor centre before the end of the year, ready for production to start in January 2015.

The new Salt Cote – traditionally a coastal reservoir for the production of salt – will create at least five new jobs, taking the workforce from 17 to 22, and aims to attract 20,000 visitors a year.

The current salt cote will continue to make the world famous sea salt in the meantime – just as well with a client list that includes President Barack Obama’s White House and celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant.

Both are fans of the rare white crystalline sea salt which was this year the first Welsh food product to gain European Union Protected Designation of Origin and join the likes of Champagne and Parma ham in having its name in the EU’s food hall of fame.

The new 1,000 square metre building, single-storey, low and unobtrusive will be a steel-framed construction of composite structural insulated panels clad with specially selected Welsh larch.

It will replace the prefabricated former doctor’s surgery and food grade portacabins which have done duty as office and production facilities for the last seven years and from where the pristine white sea salt has been shipped to Japan, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea as well as the USA and Europe.

It’s graced the tables of El Bulli, the Catalan restaurant which was named best in the world, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong, the Michelin-starred Tyddyn Llan, near Corwen, and the Smoked Sea Salt Caramel Milk Chocolates made by Fran Bigelow of Fran’s Chocolates in Seattle and the favourites of President Obama.

Anwyl are due to hand over the building on December 15 and after a fortnight shutdown to transfer the business, lock, stock and barrel, the intake pipe out in the Menai Straits will start pumping the sea water to the new salt cote – with the visitor facilities opening before Easter 2015.

Anwyl Construction Director Tom Anwyl said: “We’re very excited about the project and about playing a part in the continued success of this world famous product.

“It’s an interesting build because the steel-frame will have to be of very high quality steel and great care also has to be taken with all the building materials because salt has such corrosive properties.

“We’re pleased to have won the contract as a North Wales company and we do have a commitment to using locally-based sub-contractors and supply chains and in this case just about everyone working on the build will be from North Wales.

“That’s important to us here and elsewhere because it helps guarantee a strong and skilled workforce with the capability to carry out projects like this.”

As well as a production facility the new building will also incorporate a visitor tour as a new venture, with the entire project overseen by local company Advent Project Management Ltd.

This will be a return to their roots for David and Alison Lea-Wilson as they also developed the successful tourist business Anglesey Sea Zoo over a 23 year period which they sold on to a former member of staff to focus on growing Halen Môn but which continues to thrive next door.

Anglesey Sea Zoo attracts 100,000 visitors a year and Halen Môn currently welcomes around 10,000 and David hopes this will double next year.

The new facilities will also guarantee they can maintain current production levels of half a million packs of sea salt a year with the capacity to increase that significantly.

The £1.15 million total cost to Halen Môn has been helped so far by grants totalling about 20 per cent, with £100,000 from the Welsh Government’s Wales Economic Growth Fund, a £95,000 capital grant from the Coastal Community Heritage Lottery fund and £25,000 from Anglesey’s Area of Outstanding Beauty Sustainability fund.

David said: “We’re expanding because we’ve had to. We’re very busy and the old buildings have really reached the end of their useful life and we needed somewhere else to expand into.

“We’re really, really pleased to have Anwyl Construction, a North Wales firm, as the main contractor. We know we will get a quality building from them, using local skills and materials.

“We have been planning this major development since before 2008 and it is only possible now thanks to a huge co-ordinated effort by a large number of people and organisations who we want to thank – not forgetting our fantastic customers across Wales and the world who ensure that we provide a quality sustainable product.”

Alison added “We get so many people who call and want to see what we do so it makes sense to have a visitor centre here.

“This is the next stage in the growth of the business and it will add something totally new because next year when people ask us if they can have a look round we want to be able to say yes.

“We are exporting our range of products all over the world now and we need the extra capacity so as to be able to fulfil increases in demand and continue to diversify into new areas.

“The new European designation also means that people can’t copy our product – it means Halen Môn Anglesey Sea Salt has to be made here with sea water from the Menai Straits.

“We extract it from the middle of a rising tide because that’s when the salinity is highest and the only other ingredients are heat, about ten per cent of it supplied by solar panels, and the care and hard work of our artisan salt makers.”

The cladding for the building is heat-treated Welsh larch from a Mid Wales sawmill which David has personally selected with the help of Menter Môn  and their wood team and he added: “It’s important to us that we use Welsh suppliers wherever possible and this order for over 500 square metres of cladding has safeguarded jobs at the sawmill.”

Princess Diana’s ex butler is bringing some royal flower power to a fashion jewellery store – after turning down the opportunity to work for Hollywood Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks.

Paul Burrell, who was butler and “rock” to the late Princess of Wales for 10 years and a footman to the Queen for 11 years, arranges the flowers at Mococo at Eagles Meadow shopping centre in Wrexham every week.

He set up his business Paul Burrell Flowers, which is based in Farndon, Cheshire, in 1999 with £50,000 left to him by the princess in her will.

Father-of-two Paul who also has a home in Orlando, Florida, said: “Every display that I do for Mococo is individual and tailored for them. I always do something tall and showy because it sits on the counter at the back of the store. It’s always something a little bit dramatic, always something colourful. Pinks and lilacs go very well in this atmosphere.

“I love the team at Mococo, they’re incredible. They always give me a warm welcome and there are always smiles. I look forward to bringing my flowers here and I look forward to delivering my flowers to people’s doorsteps to see the smiles. It’s fun job. It’s not really work to be honest.

“What is wonderful about that jewellery is you can customise it for any occasion so make it personal to you which relates to my philosophy with the flowers, to give it a meaning and that’s very important.”

Mococo assistant manager Andrea Harley, said: “I think Paul’s flowers are absolutely gorgeous. He brings different themes in every week but it always goes with the colour in the store. It definitely helps brighten the place up.”

Paul revealed he misses Princess Diana to this day.

He said: “The princess left me a legacy in her will, and I was the only person other than William and Harry to be left anything. She left me a sum of money which I bought my little flower shop with. So in death she gave me a way forward and a wonderful opportunity to carry on with my life.

“I decided not to go and look after someone else although I had offers from Tom Hanks, and Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise. They all wanted me to go to their homes in Los Angeles and New York.”

He said: “I think missing someone when they’ve passed is part of all our lives. The princess was my friend and I was her confidant and one of the closest people to her other than William and Harry.

“I loved her as a sister and a friend and a boss, and I miss her, but life goes on. When you lose someone that close to you, you don’t actually say goodbye to them. I believe you carry a piece of them with you for the rest of your life.”

Paul’s eldest son Alexander who works as a soccer coach in the US for Florida Rush recently visited the store with his Colombian fiancé Mindy.

Mindy, who is a trainee nurse, bought a Thomas Sabo pearl bracelet with three charms.

Describing the bracelet Paul, said: “It has an A for Alexander an M for Mindy and a little heart that had a union jack in the middle which is a nice memento of their trip to the UK.

“Mindy’s weekend job is inside the costume of Mini Mouse in Disney World so you now know how tall she is.

“She’s a tiny little doll. Only tiny people can fit inside those costumes. They’re no more than five foot tall.”

Paul, who grew up in a poor coal-mining community in Grassmoor, Derbyshire, was trained by the court florist while he served the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

He said: “My favourites have been influenced by Princess Diana’s favourites and the Queen’s favourites.

“Diana loved roses and she particularly liked yellow roses, and in her room she liked scented flowers.

“The Queen’s favourite flower is lily of the valley so I made sure she had a small pot of it on her desk when it was in season and primroses at Easter time.

“The style and the shape of the flowers and the colours are very important. I like to use lots of foliage. My favourite flowers are scented. I love English roses.”

When Paul isn’t tending to his flower shop he is often jetting all over the world.

He said: “I’m always being offered proposals to appear on TV shows worldwide.

“I regularly go on visits to China. The Chinese fascinated by western culture so I do seminars on etiquette and manners – everything from table setting to how to serve food properly. I’ve also done work for British Airways and other corporates.

“But I love having the flower shop because it keeps me grounded because it reminds me that we are all here treading the same path. Some have more money, have titles, but it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.

“One of the princesses’ favourite sayings was all our souls weight the same.”