Food producer Glanbia is to make 717 staff redundant after announcing plans to close its struggling sliced cooked meats plant in Britain.
The Irish firm blamed continuing trading difficulties for the move, which affects workers in Bradford and Milton Keynes. Glanbia Consumer Meats supplies the retail and food service sectors with a range of sliced cooked meats, sandwich meats and other convenience foods.
The proposal to close the Consumer Meats division was made following a review of the business and an employee consultation process, which started in early March following the loss of substantial volumes.
The review found that excess capacity, intense market competition and a high cost base had made the business unsustainable going forward.
To add to the company's recent woes a fire caused damage to a Glanbia pig processing facility in Roosky, Co. Roscommon in Ireland.Contingency plans have been brought into operation to minimise disruption to the business. Customers will continue to be served by using available capacity and additional shifts in Glanbia's other two Irish pig processing plants in Roscrea and Edenderry, and contracted production, if required.
The Roosky plant employs 450 people and killed about 10,000 pigs a week. Recently €2.5 million was spent on the plant, which exports to the USA.