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Members of the trade union Unite have organised a demonstration in Spalding this Friday to protest against the loss of up to 170 jobs at Bakkavör’s Bourne salad site. (Foodmanufacturing.co.uk) Workers are protesting at company plans to shed around 170 jobs at the Leicestershire-based site – which employs over 1,000 staff and makes prepared vegetables, salads and fruits for major supermarkets – in the New Year, following the completion of a... read more →

Yorkshire food producer Westler Foods went into administration last Friday citing an inability to fund its pension scheme. (Foodmanufacturing.co.uk) The Malton firm employs almost 200 people is best-known for its ‘Westlers’ branded hotdogs, but also produces canned and pouched food products for a series of other brands including Multi Menu, Tyne, BigMex, Chesswood, Military Rations and Compleat. It supplies branded and own-label products to supermarkets,... read more →

A Polish worker has been awarded over £50,000 in damages by a Northern Irish Industrial Tribunal after suffering sexual and racial harassment at Mac’s Quality Foods. (Foodmanufacturing.co.uk) The Dunmurry-based company makes frozen, chilled and ambient meat and other products for the wholesale, retail and fast food sectors, and distributes goods throughout Ireland. Polish worker Maria Urbanska-Kopowska worked at Mac’s Quality Foods as a production... read more →

Ten trends will dominate the UK food and beverage industries next year, predicts Leatherhead Food Research. (Meatprocess.com) It identifies the 10 trends as: Reformulations and stealthy reductions, sustainability, health and wellness, riding out the recession, ever-expanding tastes, provenance, small indulgences, frozen foods, convenience and obesity. “Trends such as sustainability and reformulations fit together well as it’s all part of an overarching... read more →

German researchers are aiming to develop rapid detection systems to identify allergenic substances in foodstuffs, according to a workshop on analytical methods for allergen detection staged in Berlin this week. (Foodproductiondaily.com) Organised by the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), the workshop provided a forum to share progress on ways of detecting allergenic materials in food stuffs. Commenting... read more →

The Food and Drink Federation is raising its game on carbon dioxide emission reduction (Foodmanufacturing.co.uk) Britain’s food and drink manufacturers have made a “step change” in plans to reduce their environmental impact by raising its aim for carbon dioxide emission cuts from 30 to 35% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels and making this a “firm commitment”. The news emerges as the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) publishes... read more →

New research reveals that the costs of labelling changes for the food and drink industry are “substantially greater” than European and UK legislators have previously estimated. (Foodmanufacturing.co.uk) The report – conducted by Campden BRI and commissioned by DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) to help legislators more accurately evaluate the costs and benefits of food labelling changes – was published as the Council... read more →

Unite has written to management at Bakkavör’s Bourne fresh produce site insisting that better site management could reduce the need for planned redundancies and “savage attacks” on workers’ terms and conditions of employment. (Foodmanufacturing.co.uk) Bosses at the site, which employs over 1,000 staff and makes prepared vegetables, salads and fruits for major supermarkets, have warned that up to 170 workers face redundancy in the New Year, following... read more →