Longbenton foods to close – loss of food jobs

Longbenton foods has announced its closure as Administrators entered the company last week.

150 factory workers have been made redundant, not surprising following the trouble last month when the Longbenton MD told employees not to come in to work until he had sourced finance to re-start production at the factory.

Hopes were raised when Administrators stated they would make every effort to safeguard the jobs, these hopes were however quickly reduced when redundancies were announced late last week.

Some skeleton staff have remained in employment, but the majority of the Longbenton Foods staff have lost their jobs. It is uncertain whether there will be any food jobs in the local area to 'soak up' some of the redundancies.

On a slightly worse note, Longbenton had looked in to taking over Northumberland Foods who went into Administration in summer 2010 - a move that would potentially have saved some of the 250 staff who were made redundant from this factory. Following last weeks announcement, this takeover will no longer be taking place, therefore the 250 ex-Northumberland Food staff are back to square one.

Bids for Government help to secure the jobs and the future of the factory have been dismissed, largely due to Longbenton receiving a £2m Government funded grant in early 2010 to help with regeneration of the site following a severe factory fire.