Hundreds more jobs have been cut at the collapsed grocery supplier Palmer & Harvey as it fails to secure a deal to sell off a chunk of the business.
Four hundred people lost their jobs two weeks ahead of Christmas, bringing the total number of redundancies to nearly 3000.
Roughly 450 employees remain at the wholesale grocery business.
Prior to falling into administration last month, Palmer & Harvey supplied 90,000 grocery and convenience stores, including the UK’s two largest grocers Tesco and Sainsbury’s.
The latest round of job cuts come as joint administrator Matthew Callaghan reveals that efforts to sell part of Palmer & Harvey’s business was unsuccessful despite interest.
“We will be working with those being made redundant, as we have with those made redundant previously, to assist and provide support where possible,” Callaghan said.
The national officer of workers union, Usdaw, Mark Todd added: “Our members are devastated that administrators have not been able to find a buyer for the Palmer & Harvey van delivery business, particularly as these redundancies fall just before Christmas.”
Since the company announced the appointment of administrators, it has been revealed that it paid around £70 million in dividends over the last nine years despite wracking up millions in losses.
Its pensions deficit also more than doubled to £80 million, prompting a concerned letter from the Work and Pensions Committee chairman Frank Field.
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