Open a kitchen cupboard in almost any home and you’re likely to find a packet of biscuits made by McVitie’s, the iconic Scottish brand.
It’s Rich Tea in mine but in yours it might be Digestives, Hobnobs, Jaffa Cakes or one of many others.
McVitie’s was created in Edinburgh in the 19th century and now sells biscuits in 120 countries.
The firm’s marketing spiel is: “We promise happiness to the world with every bite” but my stomach turned when I read the corporate propaganda on a staff turnstile at the firm’s Tollcross factory in Glasgow.
It read: “To all our Food Heroes who are busy feeding the nation – THANK YOU!” The greeting is a sick joke on the betrayed workers who kept the lines operating during the pandemic and now face losing their livelihoods.
The firm’s owner plans to shut the Glasgow factory next year, throwing nearly 500 workers in the poorer East End of the city on the scrapheap.
The decision by Pladis, an arm of Istanbul-based food manufacturer Yildiz, is generating considerable anger.
The two trade unions involved, Unite and GMB, are opening a second political front in Westminster that will test whether Tory ministers really do care about the entire United Kingdom or just Conservative-dominated England.
One employee threatened with redundancy at the century-old Victoria biscuit works said: “People are very down and we have to keep pulling ourselves up... we’re not going to sit down and do nothing. There’s a family feel in here and we’re all very proud to be working for McVitie’s, a celebrated Scottish brand. You felt a chill through the body when they announced it would close.”
The move is even harder to stomach when you learn that the factory is believed to be profitable, even if less so than others in the company.
Pladis is not in trouble.
Last year it reported the entire biscuit market’s sales up 7.2%, to a mouth-watering £2.96billion.
And McVitie’s makes six of the nation’s 10 best-selling biscuits.
Pat McIlvogue, a Unite regional industrial officer, blames the Glasgow factory’s plight on a long-term lack of investment dating from even before Yildiz’s purchase of McVitie’s in 2014.
He said: “The factory’s been starved of investment and allowed to wither on the vine as they’ve shifted out production. The volumes are low, 21,000 tons in a facility capable of producing 80,000 tons a year, on aged machinery running... slower.
“Ten years ago the volume was 44,000 tons, it’s been reduced by 50%.”
Senior production workers are on £30,000 and skilled engineers £50,000, wages the workforce would struggle to replace in such a run-down area.
Number-crunching McIlvogue says it would cost the company £35million to shut Tollcross and transfer production of plain Digestives, HobNobs and Rich Tea to somewhere in England.
McVities has factories in Harlesden, North West London, Manchester, Carlisle, Aintree on Merseyside, Halifax and Wigston in Leicestershire.
Pladis managing director David Murray said when the Glasgow shutdown was announced: “In order to protect them for generations to come, we must take steps to address excess capacity in the UK.
“This overcapacity limits our ability to make the right investments in future capabilities to meet... changes in our industry.” The workforce’s counter-proposal is a £57m new, more efficient plant in the area capable of producing more biscuits at lower cost.
It would allow McVitie’s to bid for more supermarket own-brand contracts on top of those it already has for M&S, Tesco and Asda.
The Clyde Gateway development agency has identified two potential sites at Shawfield and Dalmarnock. Scottish Enterprise, a business arm of the Scottish Government, is also heavily involved.
The Pladis Action Group campaign to save Tollcross is co-led by Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s administration and Glasgow City Council.
The Scottish Government said: “We would hope and expect the senior management at Pladis to now study the proposal carefully.”
Pladis said: “We are carefully considering and evaluating the detail of the proposal.”
But Glasgow Labour MSP Paul Sweeney demanded the government do more. He said: “While I appreciate that the First Minister has personally intervened, the Scottish Government must now... use every power at its disposal to save these jobs.”
He suggested a “comprehensive state aid package to secure the deal to build a new world-class factory”.
If Pladis shut their Glasgow plant, gone will be a Scottish link from 1830 when Edinburgh apprentice baker Robert McVitie and his dad William started selling “provisions”.
Let’s hope Pladis does the right thing when it comes to the crunch.
