Food Packaging Giant Announces Temporary Contracts After˜Supermarket Surge

Added by Love Business East Midlands | 27 March 2020

A Nottingham based manufacturer of food packaging, which has seen a surge in supermarket orders, has today revealed that it is offering up to 25 temporary contracts to those effected by the recent job cuts.

The Wilkins Group based in Colwick, has long been one of the leading carton packaging suppliers to the retail food industry, which has recently been classed as a 'key Industry'. The business is now seeking extra support in the fight to keep the supermarket shelves fully stocked.

Justin Wilkins, sales and marketing director at the firm which recently won the title of Midlands Family Business of the Year, said:

"Due to the current global and domestic situation and increased demand, the business is urgently seeking skilled operators from the printing industry. These contracts will be temporary but may turn into permanent roles dependent on future circumstances."

The announcement comes as Tesco, Asda, Aldi, and Lidl said they would hire thousands of staff after hugely increased demand saw shoppers clearing shelves.

The Wilkins Group operates within the textile market from sites in China, Romania, Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka to be close to needle point, but its food packaging operations are firmly based at its Nottingham HQ.

Dealing with all of the major supermarkets to produce items such as ready meal cartons, and packaging for confectionary, pastries, quiches, sausage rolls and ice cream, it reached a group turnover of £36M last year.

Earlier this week Mick Searle, chief executive of the Packaging Federation, and Martin Kersh, executive director of the Foodservice Packaging Association, both reiterated packaging’s huge role to play as the UK goes into lockdown.

“Packaging is extremely important in circumstances like this,” said Searle. “People need to get what they want and safely. We are in totally unchartered territory”

Justin, from the business which has 294 staff in the UK, added: “We are all working in unchartered waters, and we would really love to give temporary contracts to those most effected by the job cuts announced in the last few weeks.”

If you are interested in applying, please contact our HR team on hr@wilkins.co.uk

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