A quarter of jobs lost at Paramount Foods

ADMINISTRATORS handling pizza maker Paramount Foods have made 118 people redundant – around a quarter of the workforce.

The business, which had 138 people in Salford and 312 in Deeside, fell into administration last week after losing a key contract from supermarket group Morrisons.

Sarah Bell and David Whitehouse from the Manchester office of insolvency firm Duff & Phelps were appointed to the firm, which had annual sales of £32.5m in 2011. Some 42 of the jobs will go in Salford and 76 in Deeside. Mr Whitehouse said potential buyers were still interested in the company.

He said: “The business is continuing to trade and we still have the support of the largest customer, Sainsbury’s. We’re talking to a number of interested parties. Hopefully we’ll be able to achieve a sale of the business, but we need to explore those conversations over the next few days.”

The business was spun-out of Dutch food manufacturing group Vion just last month. Its pizza bases are made at the Salford site and the manufacturing process is completed in Deeside where the finished goods are stored.