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Cold Move out in the cold
Page 7
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• Fifty drivers on a Somerfield contract held by Oswestry haulier Cold Move will lose their jobs in September as the supermarket chain undergoes a massive reorganisation.
In addition to the drivers, 60 warehouse operatives and 10 administrative employees will also lose their jobs.
Cold Move held the Kwik Save contract for 28 years, delivering 150,000 cases of frozen produce to 340 stores daily in the Wirral, Wales and West Midlands; it continued the contract when Somerfield bought Kwik Save in 1998.
"It's disappointing to lose the contract and through no fault of our own, we've been a casualty of Somerfield rationalisation," says commercial director James Woodward.
Storage, picking and distribution currently done by Cold Move will be transferred to a new 5,600m2 regional distribution centre at Lea Green near St Helens, in a phased project lasting 11 weeks ending midSeptember. The Kwik Save work represents about 40% of Cold Move's 212m annual turnover,
and two-thirds of Cold Move's driver workforce will lose their jobs. Other Cold Move employees will be offered jobs at the new Lea Green site.
Wincanton will manage the RDC and Exel will earn 216m a year for delivering 9,000 products to 290 Kwik Save and Somerfield stores across the UK.
Other sites to close are Somerfield at Ashton, served by Exel, Kwik Save at Ashton, operated in-house, and Somerfield sites at St Helen's, operated by Wincanton, and at Tipton.