S&N announces UK plant closure

Back in November, S&N announced that it would be scaling down its operations at the site situated near London. However, following further review, the company says that a complete closure of the plant was now the most "viable"​ action it could take to improve competitiveness within the country. The company said it therefore expected to generate annual cost savings of about £13m from the scheme. The company's original restructuring plans were put in place as part of the UK-based brewer's bid to fight off takeover talks from Carlsberg and Heineken. With these talks now taking place, S&N's operations director Steven Glancy said the closure plan remains vital to safeguarding the future of the operations in the country. ​"It is well documented that there is general over capacity in the​ UK​ brewing sector, and these proposals have been put in place to address this issue,"​ he stated. "The nature of the​ Reading​ site, the amount of investment required to make it competitive and its relative cost compared to other​ UK​ facilities means that there is a strong business case for closure."​ The current production output of 6mn hectolitres and the respective packaging work from the Berkshire plant, will be transferred progressively to S&N's other UK breweries. These sites include Tadcaster in Yorkshire, The Royal Brewery in Manchester and the Dunston plant in Gateshead. S&N said that talks with all employees affected by the closure would start today, with union discussions also set to kick off this week. After months of resisting, S&N last month agreed to open talks with a consortium formed by Carlsberg and Heineken over an 800 pence per share deal to buy and split its operations. If the talks succeed, Heineken would gain S&N's UK, Irish, Portuguese, Finnish, Belgian, US and Indian operations as part of the agreement, while Carlsberg would take full ownership of the profitable Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH) segment.