Grimsby lifeline for Five Star workers

AT least two Grimsby food businesses have offered job opportunities to some of the 390 Five Star Fish staff threatened with redundancy.
The 2Sisters Food Group, Five Star\’s owner, announced last week that the business was no longer sustainable in its current form and was entering a period of consultation about the future of the site. 2Sisters also has problems of its own, with profits last year dropping by almost £10 million.
The news has come as a major shock to Grimsby, where at least 5,000 people are employed in seafood processing and associated activities such as refrigeration and transport.
But it is not all gloom, with the Grimsby Telegraph reporting at the weekend that Wm Morrison was offering 100 jobs to the Five Star staff. The supermarket group has a large fish processing factory in Grimsby, employing at least 500 people.
A few days earlier, another Grimsby company, Scratch Meals which produces high quality kit dishes, said it had 35 vacancies.
A spokesman for Wm Morrison told Fish Update: ‘We are looking for up to 100 more staff and while the offer is open to anyone with the right skills and qualifications, the emphasis will be on those working at the site faced with closure.’
Last year the Morrison plant, which produces seafood exclusively for its own stores, had a turnover of £140 million, up 21 per cent on 2016.
However, everyone is waiting on Young\’s Seafood, which is being widely tipped to take on Five Star\’s coated fish contract with Marks & Spencer.
So far, Young\’s has refused to comment, but it is seen as the company best equipped for this work. If it does, then it would almost certainly want extra staff – and people who are familiar with M&S requirements.