Job losses at former Dansco mozzarella factory

Up to 19 jobs are to go at the Saputo mozzarella factory at Newcastle Emlyn because the company has failed to regain milk supplies lost when farmers quit at the height of the Dansco crisis.

Saputo, which bought the plant after Dansco went into administration earlier this year, said the redundancies were necessary to secure the long term future of the factory, which currently employs 123 people.

Manon Goudreault, Saputo’s director of communications in Montreal, said the company was unable to maintain efficiencies with the current level of staffing.

Milk intake at the Welsh plant had been “greatly reduced’’ when farmers severed their contracts with the previous owners in a dispute over milk payments, she said.

Although new suppliers had since been recruited, volumes were not sufficient to maintain seven-day-a-week production, which had been cut to five days.

“Saputo employees have made big efforts to find a solution and we have recruited more farmers but we don’t envisage that we will go back to those levels in the foreseeable future,’’ said Mrs Goudreault.

She stressed that Saputo remained determined to find solutions to its milk intake problem and that it was committed to the Newcastle Emlyn plant for the long term.