Cranswick flies in 400 butchers from Philippines to replace lost EU workers
One of the UK’s biggest pork producers has spent £4 million hiring butchers from the Philippines, after a staffing crisis threatened to hamper production.
Cranswick Plc, which supplies supermarkets with pork and poultry, is paying for 400 butchers to travel from the Asian islands to work in Britain after staff from continental Europe flocked home following Brexit.
“It’s absolutely necessary if we want food on the plates,” said Cranswick’s CEO, Adam Couch. “Obviously it’s very expensive to bring them over, but it’s far better to bring them over than to curtail production as we did this time last year.
Couch said that paying for each butcher from the Philippines cost between £10,000 and £12,000 — equivalent to more than £4 million. Each butcher needs a visa, a flight to the UK, an English test and accommodation. Cranswick has an apprenticeship program to train up new butchers, but Couch said that there was just “not enough people”.
Before Brexit, around 65 per cent of Cranswick’s workers were from central Europe. Last year, Cranswick had 25 per cent fewer staff than required at its plants in Hull and Norfolk.
Jayne Arnold from the Food and Drink Federation said the whole industry is suffering from a lack of staff “despite employers making significant efforts to attract workers from offering higher wages to introducing more flexible shifts.”
Sabah Meddings / TimesLive.co.za
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