An international transportation firm has opened its first UK office in Kent, with bosses saying they wanted to invest in the country despite Brexit.

Mesaroli - which transports clothing, food, pharmaceuticals and live stock - has launched the new offices at the Sandwich Discovery Park after three years of delay owing to the pandemic.

Martina Jurman, director UK and head of business development Mesaroli Group, said she is hoping to further expand the company's presence in the UK, with the majority of their turnover coming from work in the country.

She said: "The reason we decided to open an office here was because around 60% to 65% of our turnover of the whole Mesaroli group is the UK work.

"Many transport companies have decided not to go to the UK anymore after Brexit, we however have decided the UK is a market where we should evolve further so we decided to open a branch here and invest.

"Next year I think about half of our trucks will be registered here with drivers hired on UK contracts.

"We have out five year plan with the branch and the idea is to have here what we have in Italy".

The Italian company was established in 1948 by Arrigo Mesaroli who started with just one truck which was used to transport livestock.

Ms Jurman added: "We've now grown, we have 700 trucks and have recently bought another 300.

"Our core business is food transport in all temperatures - from frozen to fresh.

"We also transport pharmaceuticals and clothes."

The company, which is located at Innovation House, is also hoping to eventually substitute all of their trucks which run on diesel with an eco-friendly alternative.

"We're deciding whether to invest in electric ones or considering trying Tesla.

"We have about 250 lorries in the UK each week which depart from Italy."

She added that it was an "easy choice to open in the UK".

"In the next six months we need to double the number of staff we have.

"At the moment we have eight employees in the UK office."

Donna Penfold, head of business development UK said this is exciting times for the company: "The Mesaroli UK office being based in Sandwich is a great asset to the business landscape and also puts the Thanet area and Kent on the map as an ever-evolving business hub."