Over 300 Jobs At Risk At Young's Seafood In Grimsby
It's after the company lost a vital Sainsbury's contract.
The Unite Union's claiming over 300 jobs could go at Young’s Seafood in Grimsby after the company lost a vital Sainsbury’s contract.
They've described the development as 'extremely serious and very worrying'.
The jobs that could go are based at the Marsden Road site – two-thirds of the workforce of 300 staff and 200 agency workers.
Young’s Seafood has three plants in Grimsby employing a total of 2,000 workers.
Pete Ward, CEO of Young’s Seafood Limited, told Viking FM:
“We confirm that, following a tendering process, Young’s has not retained the fresh salmon and smoked salmon processing contracts with Sainsbury’s. Sainsbury’s wished to protect its Scottish salmon sourcing credentials and believed an alternative proposal could better achieve this objective. This alternative proposal also offered Sainsbury a dedicated facility.
Sainsbury’s remains an important customer for Young’s and we will continue to work together in other categories to deliver great fish and seafood products to Sainsbury’s customers. It is presently anticipated that the salmon contracts will transfer from Young’s to Sainsbury’s new supplier from November 2015.
We will be engaging with our employees and other stakeholders to discuss the implications for our business and how we can best position our company to achieve long term, sustainable growth in the current competitive market place. As we move forward, exploring a number of new business opportunities, our focus continues to be on serving our customers and consumers and on our commitment to providing high quality, good value, fish and seafood.”
Unite regional officer Dave Monaghan said:* *
“This is extremely serious and very worrying news for the workforce at Marsden Road and also for the local economy.
“At present, we are not sure how many jobs will be lost. The company is looking to obtain new contracts to fill the void left by the loss of the contract to prepare, smoke, freeze and deliver salmon to Sainsbury’s.
“We will be working closely with management in the days and weeks to come to mitigate any job losses. At present, we can’t put a figure on the number of job losses, if any. The worst case scenario would be in the region of 330 jobs lost.
“Unite understands that the Norwegian company, Marine Harvest, which provides the farmed salmon from Scotland to Young’s Seafood in Grimsby, has offered to deal directly with Sainsbury’s.
“The contract is due to be transferred from Young’s in November this year.
“We will be asking Sainbury’s if Marine Harvest has the ability to provide the processed salmon directly to Sainsbury’s. Young’s Seafood’s facilities in Grimsby are first class and top of the range.”