followed a formal consultation process<\/a> with staff and unions and will mean the company exits its frozen vegetables, coffee and dips businesses in New Zealand.<\/p>\nManaging director Andrew Donegan today said the closures were necessary to ensure the long\u2011term viability of the business.<\/p>\n
“After careful consideration and analysis of proposed suggestions, we have reached the conclusion that closing these sites and exiting these categories is the only way forward for the long\u2011term viability of the business,” Donegan said. <\/p>\n
“While change is needed, this is an incredibly difficult time for our employees and business.”<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one wants to be making these decisions, but\u00a0it’s one, as an\u00a0organisation, we need to,\u201d Andrew Donegan said.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
The closures will be phased over the course of the year, meaning final redundancy numbers are not yet known. Heinz Wattie\u2019s said it will continue to explore redeployment opportunities where possible, particularly within its Hawke\u2019s Bay operations.<\/p>\n
Of those affected, almost 50 workers from the frozen packing lines in Hastings will be redeployed, with some retrained to remain with the company.<\/p>\n
Donegan acknowledged many of those facing redundancy were long\u2011serving and highly skilled staff.<\/p>\n
“The majority of those impacted are long\u2011term experienced and skilled employees who would be sought\u2011after candidates for many employers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Heinz Wattie\u2019s said it would provide support to affected staff, including redundancy packages, employee counselling, career transition services and redeployment assistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heinz Wattie\u2019s has confirmed it will close manufacturing sites in Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland, along with frozen packing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,138,158,1080,20277,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-350130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-business","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-dunedin-otago","tag-hawke-s-bay","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}