65 jobs victims of health food drive
Oct 26 2007 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal
ATROUBLED food manufacturer has announced plans to axe up to 65 jobs by the end of the year as it closes its ready meal line.
Irish food firm Kerry Foods will make the redundancies at its Durham plant after a review of the business found its ready meal line, which employs 160 people, was not commercially viable.
Bosses will redeploy 95 people on the factory’s more successful cooked meats, snacks and fillings lines, but 65 will face redundancy.
Company spokesman Tony Bergin said the firm hoped the 65 job losses would be made through voluntary redundancy. Talks are being held with shop workers’ union Usdaw.
He said the ready meal market had suffered as consumers became more health conscious and moved towards fresh food.
He said: “It is regrettable that we had to go ahead and make some job losses, but the Durham plant is in good stead and hopefully this will be the end of it.”
Usdaw representative Mike Brewer said there was a 30-day statutory consultation period with Kerry Foods to minimise the impact of the job losses.
The job cuts are the latest devastating blow for staff in the saga of the firm’s flagging ready meals line at the plant in Durham’s Renny’s Lane.
Last May, the business said it would make redundant the line’s entire 170 workforce in an attempt to keep the factory operating efficiently.
The firm is then reported to have secured a contract with a leading supermarket chain and the jobs were temporarily saved.
Bosses at the group, which is headquartered in County Kerry, then conducted a financial review which found it was not commercially viable to keep the line working.
However, the latest blow has been softened thanks to the positive performance of the factory’s remaining lines, which means there are 95 vacancies waiting to be filled internally.
The company, whose clients include Tesco and Asda, said it had no plans to sell parts of its Durham factory after reducing the business.
Last year, Kerry Foods, which is listed on the Dublin Stock Exchange, had annual sales of £4.6m, with pre-tax profit in excess of £290,000.
In 2003, it bought Hibernia Foods’ Hartlepool operation, saving the jobs of its 200 staff after the business had gone into receivership.
However, just a few months later, the company announced it would axe 70 jobs at its newly acquired plant after a review of performance.
