Good week, bad week (Wk 8)

News of new food and drink manufacturing jobs leads this edition of Good news, bad news, your sideways look at the past seven days in the UK food and drink industry.

Alongside jobs created or saved in food and drink manufacturing over the past seven days, our good news selection features new appointments at Tesco and The Cooperative Group and, at the start of the Chinese New Year, oriental food.

Up to 400 jobs were set to be created at Perth Food and Drink Park, following a £5M investment by Perth and Kinross Council. First announced in September 2013, the park is predicted to make a significant contribution to the estimated £280M food and drink sales generated in Perth and Kinross. Scotland aims to grow its food and drink revenue from its current level of £13.1bn to £16.5bn within two years.

150 jobs at Fleetwood Fish Park 

Good week

• Jobs: Perth Food Park, Fleetwood Fish Park, Ashbury Chocolates, Camden Town Brewery

• Appointments: Tesco – John Allan, Co-op – Allan Leighton

• Oriental food: Dragons’ Den, Mintel report

It was more good news for jobs with the promise of up to 150 jobs at Fleetwood Fish Park in Lancashire after Prime Minister David Cameron announced it had won £2.5M of funding from the Regional Growth Fund.

Also, 236 jobs were saved at Ashbury Chocolates, following its acquisition by Baronie UK and more than 100 new jobs at Camden Town Brewery.

Two long-awaited appointments announced this week were John Allan to the role of Tesco’s chairman and Allan Leighton as chairman of the Cooperative Group. Britain’s biggest retailer declined to comment on reports that it planned to make up to axe up to 10,000 jobs, as part of ceo Dave Lewis’ £250M cost-cutting programme.

For the latest vacancies in food and drink manufacturing, visit FoodManJobs.

Finally, it was good news for Oriental food, as Sheffield ice cream entrepreneur Yee Kwan landed £50,000 of investment from the hit TV show Dragons’ Den.

Also Chinese Food emerged as the favourite foreign dish, according to research from market research organisation Mintel.

Topping our bad news list was allergy alerts, followed by fake alcohol seizures and plunging milk sales. It was a bad week for food safety as the Food Standards Agency issued numerous allergy alerts over undeclared almond proteins in meal kits.

Greater food safety threat than horsegate

Bad week

  • Allergy alerts
  • Milk sales
  • Fake booze

Professor Chris Elliott, author of the two government-commissioned reports on the horsemeat scandal said the contamination posed a much greater food safety threat than horsegate.

There was more bad news for the dairy sector, as IRI research revealed milk sales had plunged by £22M over Christmas, despite rising volumes over the period.

It was a bad week too for fake booze, as news emerged that enforcement agencies had seized nearly 2,500l of fake wine and spirits in pre-Christmas raids across more than 50 countries.

It was also disclosed hundreds of fake bottles of Glen’s Vodka had been seized by enforcement officers in England and Scotland.

Meanwhile, watch out next Friday (February 27) for more good news and bad news from the fast-moving world of food and drink manufacturing.