Ethnic Cuisine shuts up shop as Northern Foods shrinks
The business, which shut last Friday - although some staff are still there this week "tying up loose ends" - was earmarked for closure in April after Northern Foods failed to reach “mutually agreeable” terms with Sainsbury, its biggest customer.
The site, which made chilled Chinese ready meals, is the third factory Northern Foods has closed down or mothballed in the last three years after failing to agree mutually satisfactory terms with a key customer.
In 2008, Northern Foods chief executive Stefan Barden (pictured) mothballed the firm's Fenland Foods Italian ready meals plant in Grantham because it was unable to secure a price increase from Marks & Spencer.
Last May, it announced plans to close its Hull factory after losing a contract to supply chilled ready meals to Morrisons.
A deal to sell frozen grills business Dalepak announced this week has reduced its footprint still further, said Shore Capital analyst Clive Black: "This highlights an ongoing concern of ours about the balance of revenue contraction versus expansion at Northern.Business is being off-loaded and not replaced elsewhere across the group.
"We do not criticise management for each specific decision. However, the principle of ‘ever decreasing circles’ and potential negative operational gearing increasingly worries us."
