Grampian Country Food Group is closing its headquarters in Leeds and moving back to Scotland.
Some redundancies are expected when the company, led by chairman Fred Duncan, closes the Leeds office early next month. An unspecified number of personnel will transfer to a site in the Edinburgh area.
The move is believed to already be under way and will be completed by mid September. About 80 staff are employed by Grampian in Leeds.
While some staff will be transferred to the new Scottish hub — expected to be adjacent to one of Grampian’s existing sites in Edinburgh or West Lothian — a minority will be relocated to other sites on both sides of the border.
Alasdair Cox, a Grampian spokesman, confirmed that the company is returning the head office to Scotland. “Yes, we are closing the Leeds office. Yes, we are moving back to Edinburgh,” he said. “However, some of the functions carried out in Leeds will be transferred to other parts of the business.” He said he was unable to comment on redundancies.
Grampian moved its operational headquarters south to Leeds in December 2003. The food producer, the largest privately-owned company in Scotland, maintained a rump head office in its former home city of Aberdeen.
The decision to go south was prompted by Grampian’s desire to be geographically closer to its largest customers, which include the supermarket groups Asda, Wm Morrison, Tesco and J Sainsbury.
But the move south, which was the brainchild of David Salkeld, Grampian’s former chief executive, did not work out as planned.
Salkeld was ousted 11 months ago and, in figures filed at Companies House earlier this year, it emerged that Grampian made a loss of £2.8m on turnover of £1.85 billion in the year to May 2005, after a tax charge of £4.1m and £19m of exceptional costs relating to the closure of four plants.
Commenting on the move, Ron Hewitt, chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, said: “This is fantastic news. It’s a clear indication that if you want to run a successful business in Scotland, Edinburgh is where you need to be.”
Grampian processes more than 15,000 tonnes of meat products each year, including more than 7,000 tonnes of poultry products.
A shorter version of this article was published in The Sunday Times on 20 August 2006. Version as published on the Times Online website.