NORTHERN FOODS SHEDS JOBS
Page 8
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• Two hundred and forty driving jobs are being lost as part of Northern Foods' restructuring programme. The closure of Eden Vale's Chillserve van-sales business will Cost 140 driving jobs; another 100 delivery rounds will go as the merged PorkFarm/Bowyers operation is rationalised. These losses are among the 2,200 redundancies which will result from the restructuring—they follow 1,250 job losses at the end of lost year.
The 291m restructuring programme is the result of falling demand for doorstep milk deliveries and the 10% rise in the cost of milk since the abolition of the Milk Marketing Board's monopoly last November: these costs cannot be passed onto the customer because of increased competition from supermarkets. Paul Whitfield, Finance Executive at Northern Foods, says: "The changes are mainly in the area of delivery to shops and there will be little effect on the mail-line trunking activities." Northern's distribution arm, NFT, is also being restructured. Coldstream, the milk bulk tanker operation, is being split away from NFT to be set up as a company in its own right; it has 450 vehicles and represents a third of NFT's turnover. From 1 April the company will operate as Coldstream Distribution.