The UK’s 2 Sisters Food Group today (5 June) confirmed it is shutting a poultry plant at Smethwick in the West Midlands at the end of this month – but disputed union claims about the impact on jobs.

The announcement comes two months after 2 Sisters said it was considering closing the facility, which the company said was “ageing” and had “significant challenges to meet the standards required by ourselves and our customers”.

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The company told just-food today: “It’s with much regret that we have had to close one of the original 2 Sisters sites, but we have done our very best to find as many alternative roles as possible for colleagues.”

Unite, the UK trade union, said the closure would lead to 300 redundancies.

The 2 Sisters spokesperson said the company had been able to find jobs for 290 of the 630 staff employed at the facility, who will “be redeployed to our other sites in the West Midlands”. A further 250 employees “have volunteered to take the option of severance packages”, the spokesperson said.

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“We are currently working hard to explore all job opportunities for the remainder of colleagues (90) over the next few weeks and are hopeful more roles will be found,” the spokesperson added. 

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Julia Long, Unite’s national officer for the food industry, said the closure was “very disappointing news”, with “some 300 workers” facing redundancy.

However, Long said: “Given the company’s business case that this site was ageing and needed drastic modernisation to conform environmentally, we believe that this was the only achievable outcome.”