It's believed Heinz Wattie's is looking at more than 40 job cuts.

An unspecified number of job cuts are looming at Heinz Wattie's two Hastings factories.

The company would not confirm the number of redundancies because it was in a consultation phase with workers, but said it would call for voluntary redundancies first.

Based on the response so far, it said it was unlikely there would be any forced job cuts.

Heinz Wattie's Hastings warehouse is one of the biggest in the country.

One of the unions involved, Etu, said it understood about 40 job cuts were being proposed at the King Street factory, mostly on the factory floor, and a lesser number at its Tomoana plant.

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The company employs about 1000 workers at the height of the picking season.

Phil Knight, Etu's industry coordinator for the food sector, said it was not yet clear why the redundancies were considered necessary.

"We are certainly aware Kraft Heinz are in the process of applying Project Phoenix, an exercise globally to improve efficiencies at plants and cut costs where they can."

Heinz Wattie's continued to invest significantly in its Hawke's Bay activities, a company spokesman said.

He said the redundancies had nothing to do with Heinz Wattie's recent clearance to acquire some of the assets of Cerebos Greggs in New Zealand.