Supermarket giant Morrisons to close Bradford packing plant putting 450 jobs at risk

The supermarket chain said it would move from the Cutler Heights area of the Yorkshire city to another plant in Thrapston, Northamptonshire, and to a distribution centre in Wakefield. 

Morrisons said while the 450 jobs at the Bradford site were at risk, around 400 new jobs would be created by moving to Thrapston and Wakefield. There are plans to turn the Bradford site into a pet food manufacturing operation but this will take time and investment. 

“Regrettably, the proposal to consolidate two [packing] sites means that there are 456 colleagues at Cutler Heights who are at risk of redundancy. We will do everything we can to employ those colleagues in other Morrisons manufacturing, logistics and retail sites in the local area,” a Morrisons spokesperson said.

The decision over the plant is the latest cost-cutting move by the debt-laden supermarket chain.

Morrisons also recently decided to transfer hundreds of customer contact centre jobs from Bradford to the telecom services firm Webhelp. While this move will affect 300 staff, there will be no redundancies as they will continue to work from home. 

The retailer has ditched 83 property maintenance services, putting 1,000 jobs at risk, and is planning to lose 50 property maintenance staff at its Bradford head office. 

At its most recent financial update, Morrisons said sales rose by 1% in the 13 weeks to April 30, while underlying profits fell by 10.7% to £394m in the six months to April 30 as it invested in keeping prices down amid “significant inflationary headwinds”.