Arabella Woodrow MW is to join Broadland Wineries, the specialist bottling and packing company, as its first wine director.

The move is a key part of Broadland Wineries change in strategy to become a one stop wine sourcing, brand development, production and packaging company.

Woodrow, who joined the Norwich-based company this week, was most recently head of wine development at Morrisons, but has held other senior roles at The Co-operative and Myliko Wines.

She will continue to be based in the north and support Broadland's key customers and suppliers for the UK and overseas.

Mark Lansley, chief executive of Broadland Wineries, told harpers.co.uk: "We are absolutely delighted to have Arabella as part of our team. You can do into any wine region in any country in the world and Arabella will know the wines and the people behind them."

She will play a key role, he said, in helping to "reposition" Broadland from being a contract bottler into a full service wine provider capable of handling everything from sourcing wine through to technical blending, brand design, and then bottling in all available wine formats.

Woodrow said: "The company has made consistent progress over the last five years. It can provide a BRC grade A production and bottling facility close to Felixstowe and the major retailer's distribution hubs. Broadland's comprehensive production and packing capability, including a wide variety of packaging formats means we are strongly positioned to develop exciting new wines for our customers in the future."

Lansley said the company was particularly well placed to get new products to market ahead of its competition as it has all the facililities on one site. Brand development in a wide range of packaging formats is key to its new stratetgy. Pouch formats, he said, were performing particularly strongly and it is set to introduce a British perry-based 1.5 litre pouch product, Le Soleil Picnic, in April.

Lansley was also keen to stress that Broadland Wineries was through its financial difficulties in the past thanks to a substantial personal investment by himself and "winning a number of important retailer contracts". The company, he said, made a profit of over £1 million last year.

He also stressed he is the full owner of Broadland Wineries and is no longer involved with a previous joint venture with Asda.