127 jobs lost at Serious Food Ltd

A total of 127 jobs have been lost at a food company after it was forced to call in administrators.

Serious Food Ltd, which operates from a site in Llantrisant, south Wales, employs more than 400 people.

Rob Lewis and Derek Howell of PricewaterhouseCoopers have been appointed administrators of Serious Food and its subsidiary Sunjuice.

In a brief statement they said that the announcement of 127 job losses were with immediate effect.

They said the business would continue to trade as normal while discussions took place with a number of parties to sell parts of the business as a going concern.

They added that the administration did not affect the soup and distribution subsidiaries of Serious Food Ltd.

A former subsidiary, The Serious Food Company, which makes desserts and employs 60 people, is trading successfully after previously being sold to Noble Foods.

Rob Lewis, joint administrator and partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: "Whilst it is regrettable that we have had to make redundancies today, I hope that it will be possible to find buyers for the different parts of the business affected.

"We are putting in place arrangements to let trading continue as normally as possible, and in order for that to happen we will need the support of customers, suppliers and employees over the coming weeks whilst we try and find the best solution possible."

Sunjuice was founded in 1987 and makes more than half the smoothies and freshly squeezed juices consumed in the UK, the majority of which are supplied to the private label mark.