Cadbury’s new owner, Kraft, has confirmed plans to close the company’s Somerdale factory, with the loss of 400 jobs.
Only last week the firm said it would keep the factory in Keynsham, near Bristol, open.
According to Kraft Foods, original plans put in place by Cadbury in 2007 to close the plant were so far advanced that it would be unrealistic to reverse them.
The firm added that it had become clear that the investment required to reverse the closure programme “would be so significant that alternative plans were not viable”, the BBC reports.
Irene Rosenfeld, chairman and chief executive of Kraft Foods, said: “It became clear that it is unrealistic to reverse the closure programme, despite our original intent to do so. While this is a difficult decision, we have moved quickly to end any further uncertainty.”
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The union Unite said the decision sent the “worst possible message” to 6,000 other Cadbury workers in the UK and Ireland.
Jennie Formby, Unite national officer for the food and drinks sector, said the US firm had “deliberately misled many hundreds of decent men and women”.
