200 jobs lost at drinks company

Talks to sell off the fruit juice business have been unsuccessful

A further 200 jobs are to go at a south Wales food manufacturer that went into administration at the end of January.

The posts are to go at the Sunjuice drinks facility at Llantrisant, Rhondda Cynon Taf.

The company is part of the Serious Food Limited group, and makes more than half the smoothies and freshly squeezed juices consumed in the UK.

Administrators say talks to sell the juice part of the business as a going concern have been unsuccessful.

However, 90 staff will be kept on at the plant as attempts to keep the remaining smoothie drinks operations trading.

Rob Lewis, joint administrator for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said: "It is, of course, regrettable that further redundancies have been necessary, but we are working with the employees that have been affected to ensure that the various claims that they are entitled to make are processed as quickly as possible.

Smoothies

"I remain in discussions with a number of parties around the potential rescue of the smoothie business as a going concern and whilst these discussions continue I am confident that the support shown by the remaining workforce will continue at the levels that we have received over the past week or so."

Serious Food Ltd ran into problems in November, when it began consultations with its 420 employees over a redundancy programme.

The company blamed difficult trading conditions in the last 12 to 18 months for the situation.

However, administrators were finally called in on 28 January, with 127 people laid off immediately.

The administration does not affect the soup and distribution subsidiaries of Serious Food Ltd.

Also unaffected is a former subsidiary, The Serious Food Company, which makes desserts.

This part of the business, which employs 60 workers, was sold off to Noble Foods and is trading successfully.