Ready meals manufacturing to cease at Sheffield site

A convenience food producer is to transfer its ready meals division away from a Sheffield site.

Greencore, which also has a site in Worksop, said it had decided to transition part of its ready meals portfolio away from the Kiveton plant to fresher ready meal propositions.

It said: “The Group is proposing to phase out longer life ready meals manufacturing at Kiveton, where it will continue to manufacture quiche and soup, and transfer volume to other parts of its ready meal network.

“The proposal requires employee consultation and if agreed, the proposed closure of the ready meal unit will occur in March 2019, incurring modest cash costs.”

The announcement came as listed Greencore, which is headquartered in Dublin, published a Q3 trading update, recording revenues of £639.6m in the period. The firm’s Convenience Foods UK & Ireland division reported revenues of  £375.9m in Q3.

Greencore revealed in November it was restructuring its UK operations and in January it sold its cakes and desserts division to Bright Blue Foods.

The company employs around 16,000 people in 31 manufacturing facilities across the UK and the US and manufactures around 1.5bn sandwiches, more than 600m salad and lunch kits, and 140m ready meals every year.

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