

Nine hundred jobs are under threat at three poultry plants belonging to 2 Sisters Food Group, the UK’s largest supplier of supermarket chicken, which has been dogged by a controversy over food standards.

The potential closure of two of the firm’s West Midlands factories in Smethwick and Wolverhampton, plus a third in Cambuslang in South Lanarkshire, follow a nightmare year for the company, which has included the closing of a further site in Smethwick as well as a Guardian and ITV undercover investigation that prompted production to be suspended for five weeks last autumn at the group’s West Bromwich plant.



The company added that while it will begin consulting on the latest job losses, it also plans to create up to 1,000 jobs at other plants around the UK.



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“As we continue to build a better business, we are simplifying how we work and investing in the areas that can make the most positive difference to our UK poultry operations,” a 2 Sisters spokesman said.



“This means that we will be creating up to 1,000 new roles within the poultry supply chain. However, we do have areas of significant challenge and regrettably 900 roles will be at risk at three loss-making sites which we propose to close.”

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Scot Walker, a convener at Cambuslang for the union Unite, told BBC Scotland: “Unite will do everything in negotiation with the company to find a way to safeguard the future of the site and protect the jobs.”

The poultry group said it plans to create 300 jobs at its site in Willand, Devon, 250 at its factory in Coupar Angus, Perth and Kinross, 35 at Llangefni in Anglesey, and 30 in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire – with up to 400 more at its “Site D” in West Bromwich, where the undercover footage was shot last year.

The undercover reports led to an investigation into 2 Sisters by the Food Standards Agency, which is continuing, as well as a parliamentary inquiry by the environment, food and rural affairs committee that concluded that the problems identified at the site were “not a one-off” at the company.

The footage shot at 2 Sisters’ West Bromwich chicken plant showed poultry being dropped on the floor and returned to the production line, as well as an instance of labels recording the slaughter dates of birds being changed.

The chicken processor has denied the film revealed any food safety breaches and said it had temporarily suspended production at the factory because of process failures, adding that its “internal investigation has shown some isolated instances of non-compliance with our own quality management systems”.

The site reopened in November after the company had retrained staff, with one of the factory’s main customers, Marks & Spencer, stating: “We have assessed the changes made at the site by 2 Sisters and are confident it can meet our high production standards.”