‘Food-on-the-go’ manufacturer to create thousands of East Midlands jobs

Sandwich-maker Greencore says it is set to create thousands of jobs – including at its sites in Worksop, Lincolnshire and Northampton.

The firm’s chief executive told Sky News that it was set to expand rapidly as the Dublin-headquartered firm experienced “very strong” demand for its products following the easing of Covid restrictions.

The firm, which makes sandwiches for Marks & Spencer, posted half-year losses of £1.8m for the six months to March 26 against a profit of £27.3m as demand for “food-on-the-go” dipped. However, Greencore has secured £175m worth of new deals in recent weeks and is now running at only 5% below pre-Covid levels.

Coveney told Sky News: “This has been a challenging period for Greencore, but the consistent build in our revenues since early March as lockdown measures have eased and COVID-19 cases have fallen give us real cause for optimism.

“We’re probably going to bring about 5,000 new people into our production and supply chain network between 1 March and 1 July and that’s a big step-up and does require us to be able to on-board safely lots of new people.”

Coveney said the new jobs would be created in the sandwich, salad and sushi arms of the business at manufacturing facilities in Worksop, Lincolnshire and Northampton – as well as London and Liverpool.

He added: “They would be the biggest areas where we’re looking to bring new people into the business to meet this very, very strong rebound in demand as the COVID restrictions are being eased.”