PUB equipment company Brulines yesterday announced plans to create at least 40 jobs after a strong half-year performance.

The Stockton business reported a 102 per cent increase in turnover, from £4.56m last year, to £9.24m for the same six-month period ending September 30.

Since then, Brulines has successfully floated on the Alternative Investment Market, raising another £7m.

The group has recently been boosted by contracts with Enterprise Inns and Punch Taverns, and is planning to branch out into new markets, targeting amusement machine operators.

Yesterday, Brulines chief executive James Dickson told The Northern Echo of his intention to make the company "the oracle of operational data to pub groups".

He also said that at least 40 extra people would be added to the group's staff of 174, at least half of whom will work on Teesside.

He said: "This will give us platforms to take advantage of growth opportunities out there. We are pretty confident that the full-year figures will be in line with forecast.

"We will deliver what we say we are going to.

"Over the past 12 months, we have added another 40 people to the business, and over the next 18 months, there will be about 40 more - at least 50 per cent of that number will be on Teesside."

The company, founded in the early 1990s, manufactures and sells equipment that can measure how much beer goes from the barrels to the glass.

"It counts breweries Greene King and Belhaven among its clients.