Gabriela Bolohan, who began working at Solway Foods’ Newport site in South Wales in July 2024, was diagnosed with Raynaud’s disease several months later.
Raynaud’s disease impacts blood flow to the fingers and toes and can cause a sufferer’s extremities to turn blue. Describing it as a “common” condition, the NHS says it can be treated by staying warm.
As part of her dispute, Bolohan said she told her bosses that her “heart may stop” if she was forced to continue working in the cold conditions, alleging that Solway Foods failed to make reasonable adjustments for her.
A judge dismissed her claims, however, pointing out that the nature of her role involved “chilled and frozen food” and adding that management had made changes to enable her to work in a “safe and healthy manner”.
The site employs 1,600 people, producing a range of chilled ready meals.
Solway Foods’ operation is based out of a wider prepard-meals facility operated by 2 Sisters Food Group.
Occupational health adjustment
Tribunal papers reveal that Bolohan’s initial role focused on handling chilled and frozen foods in an environment ranging from 0-5C.
After being made aware of her condition, the occupational health team recommended that she be moved to a “warmer working environment”.
At a later welfare meeting, Bolohan requested to be allowed to work in the same area as her partner. This was rejected by the firm because recommendations stated that she should not lift loads in excess of 5kg following previous “dizziness, fever and bone pain”.
Bolohan was also told she could not be placed in the same section as her partner because she had been moved to a warmer chilled-products environment rather than a frozen-food area. In response, the tribunal heard that she said her current workspace had been the only choice she was given and that it was “still cold and frozen”.
According to the meeting minutes, she then said: “I went to A&E after work and was told that due to me working in the cold, my heart may stop.”
Bolohan later alleged that the minutes were inaccurate and that she did not say her heart was at risk of stopping, but this argument was rejected by the judge.
After the welfare meeting, which took place in February 2025, Bolohan was placed on medical suspension with full pay.
After telling an HR employee in March 2025 that there was “no longer an issue” with her heart, Bolohan was placed on statutory sick pay.
She said: “When I went to the doctors, they told me it wasn’t anything to do with my heart and they thought it was a pulmonary embolism. But they couldn’t find anything for that.”
In April 2025, she raised a grievance about the switch, alleging a failure by Solway Foods to “implement reasonable adjustments”, which was not upheld.
Sex discrimination claim rejected
During the employment tribunal in April 2026, Bolohan repeated these claims and submitted complaints of “direct discrimination on grounds of sex”.
After her partner was moved to an area known as the potato plant in March 2025, Bolohan was not moved there until May 2025. She alleged that the “less favourable treatment was because she is a woman”.
Rejecting these claims, Judge Stephen Povey said: “The claimant has been unable to point to anything she relies upon to support her contention that the supposed differential treatment was because of her sex.”
He did not uphold Bolohan’s claims of sex discrimination or of a failure by Solway Foods to make reasonable adjustments.
Povey added that the company had not been made aware of her condition before employing her and that, once it did, it went “out of its way” to support her safe return to work.
Concluding, he said: “There was no breach of the duty on the respondent to make reasonable adjustments, the complaint is not made out and it is dismissed.”
