Troubled Amble food firm insists it has a plan
Dec 9 2010 by Brian Daniel, The Journal
MYSTERY surrounded the future of a Northumberland food factory last night amid claims it had been temporarily shut down.
The Journal was told the Longbenton Foods site at Amble was locked up on Monday, with claims the locks had also been changed.
A councillor later in the day reported only one light on in the building and no sign of any people there.
It was understood administrator Begbies Traynor, which recently sold the factory to Longbenton Foods, had ordered the lock up.
It was claimed the company had failed to complete paperwork relating to the sale in time, and that the administrator has said the site should be closed until this is done.
Longbenton Foods was said to be “solving the last outstanding issues” with the administrator, and was hopeful of reopening the site “within the next 48 hours.”
The Journal has tried repeatedly to contact Longbenton Foods’ managing director Vidar Engen but was yesterday told he is out of the country.
We were also unable to contact other members of the business.
Begbies Traynor also failed to respond to requests for information, with Andrew Haslam, a partner at the firm’s Newcastle office, saying he had knowledge of what had happened.
A man whose wife works at the Amble site said: “This comes at possibly the worst time of year. Staff do not know what is happening.”
On Monday, The Journal reported that workers at the factory had not been paid for any work since Longbenton Foods took over at the end of October. Furthermore, production at the site had stopped.
Mr Engen told us workers would be paid last Friday or on Monday and that work had stopped due to lack of supplies coming in.
The man whose wife works at the site has claimed staff were paid 25% of their salaries on Monday.
Town councillor Ian Hinson said: “It is not encouraging.”
A spokesperson for Longbenton Foods said: “We are solving the last outstanding issues with the administrator. Hopefully we should be able to open again within the next 48 hours.
“We have a long term plan building the Amble site and we see this as teething problems.
“We are determined to invest and develop in Amble and create sustainable long-term jobs.
“The history of the factory is creating us a bit of trouble, but this we will solve. We have a good team in place in Amble and have good support from suppliers, council and customers.”
The plant, on Coquet Enterprise Park, was bought by the North Tyneside based company, after previous owner Northumberland Foods went into administration, ceased trading and made all staff redundant.
Northumberland Foods had only commenced trading in February 2009 after a management buyout of Cheviot Foods, which had also been on the verge of collapse.
Longbenton Foods resumed production with 70 workers from the previous company, announcing they hoped to re-employ another 30 staff. There are now 104 staff employed at the site.
There was a fire last month although production was largely unaffected.
