E-Malt.com News article: UK: InBev’s brewery in Lancashire to cut 168 jobs

Staff at Inbev, the company that makes Stella Artois at Samlesbury, has been told that 168 workers will be made redundant when a 90-day consultation period is completed in May, The Citizen published March 28.

Almost half of the 380-strong workforce is set to be shed in a move that the company said was aimed at increasing efficiency.

Bosses said that a recent downturn in beer sales had hit the company hard. Workers have reacted with shock and unions have vowed to fight the decision. A spokesman for the GMB union said that they were in talks with bosses at the international firm, which is based in Leuven, Belgium.

East Lancashire GMB secretary Tom Fallows said the magnitude of the job losses had been "shocking". He said: "We will not sit idly by and watch such a large number of our members lose their jobs. "We are in talks with the company looking at their reasons for the decision and hope to avoid redundancies and mitigate any losses."

One worker, who has been with the brewery for 18 years said staff were reeling. He said no details of which jobs were under threat have been revealed by bosses. The man, who asked not to be named, said: "It is terrible news for everyone here. There are an awful lot of depressed people since the announcement."

The site in Cuerdale Lane, Samlesbury, has previously operated under the name Interbrew and as a Whitbread brewery.

Inbev brews Stella Artois, Tennent's lager, Boddingtons and Castlemaine XXXX at the factory.

Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans said he was "incredibly disappointed" by the news.

He said: "This is a huge number of jobs and I am sure it will and I want to meet with the company and the union to see what can be done to stem the number of jobs that are being lost and mitigate the impact of the redundancies."

In the past few years the site has absorbed jobs from breweries that have closed.

Many staff from the Boddington's brewery in Strangeways, Manchester, were transferred to Samlesbury in 2005.

Inbev operates two other sites in the UK, Magor, near Newport in South Wales, and Wellpark brewery in Glasgow.


28 March, 2008