Bitter blow for Bendicks staff: 87 jobs under threat

By Ben Bouckley

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Germany

Bitter blow for Bendicks staff: 87 jobs under threat
Chocolate maker Bendicks has announced the start of a consultation on the future of its Hampshire chocolate facility that could see 87 UK jobs moved abroad.

Last Friday the firm’s German owner Storck UK announced​the start of a consultation with staff and the trade union Unite on the future of production at the Winchester facility, which produces Bendick's well-known Bittermints.

This could see production relocated to East Germany, although Storck UK said Bendicks’ sales and marketing operations will remain at Winchester.

A Bendicks spokeswoman told FoodManufacture.co.uk that the consultation was scheduled to last 30 days, but could take longer.

Food giant Storck, whose brands also include Werther’s Original (and Riesen and Dickmann’s in Germany) acquired Royal Warrant holder Bendicks - which supplies chocolates to the Royal Family - in 1988.

Weak labour laws

A Unite spokesman told FoodManufacture.co.uk: "The announcement did come as a bit of a shock, and obviously we're doing all we can to influence the decision, and that includes presenting alternatives to site closure."

He added that Storck already had a site established in Eastern Germany to which production might be transfered, and said that lower labour costs might be one of the reasons for the move away from Winchester, where Bendicks have produced for around 30 years.

Unite regional officer Ian Woodland added: "Bendicks and Werther's Originals are famously British. The skilled workforce who have spent years manufacturing high quality confectionery now face an uncertain future."

Woodland blamed weak labour laws working against UK interests, and added: “Unite will be doing everything possible to protect jobs, in a community where unemployment is already too high."

Quintessentially British firm Bendicks - it has a section on its website titled 'A British Affair' - has been manufacturing chocolate in England since 1930, when Oscar Benson and Bertie Dickson founded the firm in Kensington and lent the first syllable of their respective surnames to its name.

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