Thwaites puts 60 brewing jobs at risk in fresh restructuring

LANCASHIRE brewer Daniel Thwaites has announced proposals to cut another 60 jobs at its Blackburn brewery as it steps-up plans to leave the “uneconomic site.”

Despite reporting slow progress in negotiations with the local authority and supermarket group Sainsbury’s to redevelop the site, the business said it is still committed to investing in a modern facility.

As a result of cutting brewing on the current site – the plan is to outsource production to other brewers in the interim period – Thwaites has put 60 staff under threat of redundancy.

Thwaites employs a total of 350 people in its brewery, distribution operations, sales force and head office.

Managing director Rick Bailey said: “Our current brewery is old, oversized for our current needs and reaching a point of obsolescence; it is inefficient for the demands of today’s market and is reaching the end of its economic life.

“We are therefore proposing today, a further restructuring of our brewing operations, the next stage in seeing through our commitment to reinvesting in a new brewery locally, that is more efficient and more suitable for the future.”

He added: “This proposed restructuring and the closure of parts of our old brewery will see the company continue to brew at our Blackburn site in our modern craft brewery, which we installed in 2011.

“During this transitional phase we will be at full capacity, and to the extent that we have capacity constraints, we will be helped by some of our beers being brewed by external partners.”

Mr Bailey said he hoped to be able to disclose the proposed location of the new brewery in the near future: “We are absolutely committed to brewing beer, which will remain at the heart of the hospitality we provide and whilst it is incredibly hard to lose colleagues, we believe this is best way forward for the company.”

In February 2013 Thwaites announced nearly 30 redundancies as it exited contract packaging.