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Source: ONE News -
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Cereal maker Sanitarium New Zealand has offered 36 workers redundancy after suspending Weet-Bix manufacturing operations at its quake-hit Christchurch factory.
Sanitarium General Manager Pierre van Heerden said Sanitarium had not made a final decision on the future of manufacturing at the site and it could take six to 12 months to reach a decision.
Heerdan said Sanitarium has decided to deconstruct the main food processing tower at the site.
He said the decision to make Weet-Bix workers redundant came after an engineering report revealed the tower block at the factory had become damaged in the February 2011 earthquake to the extent that it was a safety risk.
Marmite machinery will be moved to another section in the factory that is safer, as the company intends to continue manufacturing the spread, at least in the short term.
Sanitarium said it would try to get Marmite production at the plant up and running as fast as it could.
Staff have been offered the opportunity to apply for jobs in Auckland and at its sister company in Australia.
"Naturally it has been a difficult day [for workers] but a lot of them have been expecting it. Some staff said to me that after the 23rd of December quake they were sure we wouldn't be able to open our factories again as we had hoped to," Fairfax reported.
More than 60 staff were sent home in November last year after manufacturing was suspended due to safety concerns.
The Seventh Day Adventist Church of New Zealand owns Sanitarium New Zealand, and other branches of the church own their national Sanitarium firms.
The Christchurch plant makes products including Weet-Bix, and since the 1970s has manufactured all the Marmite sold in the South Pacific, according to the company website. It is one of two main manufacturing sites in New Zealand, the other being in Auckland.
