Bernard Matthews has confirmed 69 chicken production and 59 managerial job losses at its Norfolk site – and staff are said to have been left feeling ‘betrayed and let down’.
Unite, reportedly the country’s largest union, represents about 550 of the 1,400-strong workforce at the production sites at Great Witchingham and Holton in Suffolk.
The union said that the workers were led to believe that when the company was purchased by the private office of Ranjit Singh Boparan last September, more business for chicken production would be generated.
Ranjit Singh Boparan is the founder and owner of 2 Sisters Food Group.
The 69 chicken production jobs are at the south site at the company’s headquarters at Great Witchingham, Norfolk. The other job losses are managerial, technical and clerical staff.
The north site, which deals with turkey production, is unaffected.
Unite regional officer Steve Harley said: “We are obviously disappointed by the announcement that the new owners will cease all year round chicken production at Great Witchingham.
“Our members, who met senior representatives of the 2 Sisters Food Group during the transition period, feel very let down, as these representatives indicated that investment would secure existing jobs and there was also the opportunity to attract more chicken business to the site, so utilising existing spare capacity.
“This has clearly not happened and, therefore, many of those workers feel betrayed as they consider they were misled.
“That said, Unite has worked closely with the management to minimise the number of redundancies within our bargaining unit and some redundancies were avoided due to redeployment across other parts of the business.”
A Bernard Matthews spokesman said: “We have completed the process and explored all options available to us to mitigate job losses.
“After discussion with colleagues and union representatives the decision was taken to cease production of chicken and to restructure head office.
“These changes will enable the business to focus on what we’re best at and allow us to make things happen with agility and pace.”
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.
