Shortage of family favourite groceries from Princes Food, union warns

Brands such as Branston and Crosse & Blackwell could be in short supply on supermarket shelves if strikes at a major food company go ahead this month. Workers at Princes Food factories across the country are set to walk out amid a row over pay despite the company saying the pay offer extended to colleagues is “fair”.

After industrial action at the firm's Cardiff factory, further action is planned in Bradford, Cardiff, Glasgow, Long Sutton and Wisbech throughout January after the company failed to come back to the negotiating table with an improved offer after Christmas, the Unite union said.

Hundreds of workers are set to walk out, which could leave supplies of products produced for the Crosse & Blackwell and Branston lines suffer, as well as Princes products. Princes Foods makes dozens of household name products, including their own brand tins and jars of meat and fish, with the union warning the strikes "are likely to lead to shortages in supermarkets and shops across the country".

The dispute comes after the union said previous pay offers were revoked by new owners of the firm. Unite members, who work as line operatives and engineers, had been offered between a four and seven per cent pay rise dependent on salary by the previous owner, Mitsubishi.

The company was subsequently bought by Italian based multinational Newlat SPA for a reported £700 million. The company then withdrew the pay offer, tabling instead a three per cent pay rise, Unite claims.

General secretary, Sharon Graham, said: "Newlat need to get back round the negotiating table before its customers discover they won’t have any products on their shelves. Our members work in back-breaking roles on low pay and want a fair slice of the pie.

"Newlat make 20 per cent of all their revenues in the UK and are making money off the backs of these workers. Yet they want to shortchange our members. Unite won’t stand for such behaviour and back our members 100 per cent."

In its latest half year financial reports, the Newlat Group expects to achieve sales of €2.8 billion (£2.32 billion) during this financial year, with profits of around €188 million (£156 million).

Unite national officer for food, drink and agriculture, Paul Travers, added: "Newlat borrowed huge sums of money to buy Princes and is now looking to cut corners and penny pinch to pay that money back. Unite won’t let them do so with our members’ livelihoods. Newlat can avoid this strike, which is one of their own making, by coming back to the negotiating table with a new and improved pay deal for our members."

In response to the strike action, Princes said they recognise the “difficult economic circumstances our colleagues and the wider UK face”, but believe their offer, which is above the current rate of inflation, to be reasonable following annual above inflation pay increases over the past five years. Employees received pay rises of 8% in 2023, 7% in 2022 and 2.5% in 2021, and a one-off cost of living payment of 4.1% in 2022, according to a Princes spokesperson.

They said: “It is now clear to us that it is becoming increasingly difficult to resolve this dispute with Unite. We have engaged the Union in discussions for several months, tabled an above inflation pay rise and had offered to backdate this to April 2024 whilst discussions were ongoing but Unite advised us that they would not permit the business to do this.

“We completely recognise the difficult economic circumstances our colleagues, our industry and the wider UK faces. Our industry has faced covid and Brexit impacts, then inflation and a cost of living crisis and navigating these has required empathy, sacrifice and pulling together as one team which colleagues across our business have done so well.

“The Princes board fully understands our very serious obligation to looking after our colleagues, but we have that exact same obligation to keeping Princes a sustainable business in the long term through focussing on managing our costs and being a competitive supplier of UK food and beverages.”

Explaining their decision to alter the previously negotiate pay rise, Princes said consider “several complex factors” when calculating the value of any pay awards, adding that they believe the 2024 3% pay offer extended to colleagues is fair, representing in real terms an above inflation pay increase that matches the increase awarded to all other UK colleagues.

Confirming their stance on the matter, they said at this stage, a higher offer is “not feasible” without risking price competitiveness for customers and the long-term success of the business, saying it “could put pressure on production volume and jobs at the very sites that Unite are causing disruption to”. The spokesperson cited reasons for the decision including “extremely fierce economic market challenges”, “higher costs for employers” with the changes to the Living Wage for example adding approximately £1,800 of costs for full-time employees in 2024, along with “more employment costs in 2025” such as the increase in Employer NI contributions.