2 Sisters Food Group has confirmed that its poultry processing plant in Smethwick, West Midlands, is set to close at the end of June which will lead to various employment options for its staff.
The food group said it has found jobs for 290 of the 630 staff at the site, who will be redeployed to the company’s other sites in the West Midlands, meanwhile 250 workers have volunteered for redundancy.
It also pointed out that it was “working hard to explore all job opportunities” for the remaining 90 employees over the next few weeks.
A spokesperson for 2 Sisters Food Group said: “It’s with much regret that we have had to close one of the original 2 Sisters sites, but we have done our very best to find as many alternative roles as possible for colleagues.”
Commenting on the “very sad” news of the plant’s closure, Unite’s national officer for the food industry, Julia Long, claimed that the union managed to save about “250 jobs”, but “some 300 workers face redundancy”. 2 Sisters’ spokesperson dismissed these figures as “incorrect”.
Long added: “Given the company's business case that this site was ageing and needed drastic modernisation to conform environmentally, we believe that this was the only achievable outcome.
"Unite always has the welfare of its members as the top priority and we are continuing to support them in the days and weeks ahead.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
