Express & Star

2 Sisters to close loss-making Scottish factory

A food group, which has its headquarters in the West Midlands is to go ahead with shutting its poultry processing factory in Scotland.

Published
2 Sisters is considering whether to close factories in Smethwick and Wolverhampton

2 Sisters, which is the UK’s biggest supplier of supermarket chicken, is closing the Cambuslang factory in South Lanarkshire in August. Around 450 people are employed there

The Birmingham-based group said in February that 900 jobs were at risk at Cambuslang and in the West Midlands where it is considering whether to close factories in Smethwick and Wolverhampton.

The company was last year the subject of an undercover investigation which revealed food safety breaches, which led to production to be suspended for five weeks at the company’s West Bromwich plant.

2 Sisters said that it will try to keep the number of compulsory redundancies in Scotland to a minimum.

“This is not a decision we take lightly. Since day one, we have been very open on the big challenges the factory faces.

“In fact, we have been trying extremely hard to reverse the position for a considerable period of time. We have invested several million pounds since 2014 and expanded by taking on more people, yet it is still a heavily loss making operation.

“We have tried every turnaround option available to us for several years, ranging from cost-reduction measures to an attempt to grow the business organically. It has made little difference," a statement from 2 Sisters said.

The group has joined 25 organisations in the world to unite on the global food waste campaign by becoming a Friend of Champions 12.3.

Champions 12.3 is a group of executives chaired by Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis that aims to halvefood waste by 2030.

Ranjit Singh Boparan, president of 2 Sisters parent, Boparan Holdings, said: “We believe there is a global responsibility to ensure that food suitable for human consumption is kept within the supply chain. With 8.4 million people in the UK struggling to put enough food on the table it is not acceptable that food is going to waste.

“At 2 Sisters we recognise there is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to tackling this issue and we’ll therefore continue to look at a number of different initiatives across our operations to find opportunities for positive change.”

One way 2 Sisters has helped contribute towards the reduction of food waste is through their partnership with the food redistribution charity FareShare.