Pilgrim’s Food Masters, which makes ready meals for supermarkets including Morrisons, Aldi and Waitrose, is set to slash hundreds of jobs.
According to GMB Union, the food manufacturer has announced up to 260 redundancies at its site in Dean Way, Southall, and will now enter a statutory 45-day consultation with staff.
GMB senior organiser Gavin Davies said: “GMB has serious concerns about how this will impact on our members and the local community with the job losses.
“With the previous closure of Colette Way, a further closure to Dean Way has come as a massive blow to our members.
“GMB will fight tooth and nail for workers to be paid every penny they are due.”
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Last year, 1,000 workers were faced with fire and rehire at one of the company’s Southall factory, with workers staging a protest outside the Houses of Parliament.
However, an agreement was reached and at the time, and Pilgrim’s and GMB said the provisional agreement was “the best possible outcome” to “protect jobs” and “sustain the business for the future”.
Speaking of the current changes, Pilgrim’s Food Masters said: “Over the past few years we have been working hard to transform our meals business, which has seen us secure long-term customer contracts, increase our product offering and improve our operational efficiencies.
“Despite our best efforts, we are continuing to face industry challenges and lower than expected market volumes. In light of these market conditions – and in order to ensure business continuity and protect jobs – we have had no choice but to review the shape of our business.
“Following a thorough assessment, we have identified ways to maximise the capacity across our sites and are proposing to consolidate our total ready meals volume into Attleborough and Windmill Lane. This unfortunately means the proposed closure of our Dean Way site.”
The spokesperson added that Pilgrim’s will be “supporting all those affected throughout this process and our intention is to redeploy colleagues to our neighbouring sites wherever possible.
“We are working hard to limit any impact to our customers, consumers and suppliers during this time.”
