AN East Lancashire meat producer, which never recovered from the BSE and foot and mouth outbreaks, is to close with the loss of 111 jobs.

Great Harwood Food Products, the largest subsidiary of E Slinger and Sons and better known in East Lancashire as Slingers, called in administrators in September last year.

Attempts to sell the business, based in Balfour Street, as a going concern failed.

The decision was taken to close because it was losing more than £20,000 a week.

Yesterday morning 71 staff were told they were losing their jobs, with immediate effect.

A further 40 staff cold store, maintenance and office workers have been kept on to help wind up the business, but are expected to be made redundant in about a month.

The abattoir and the beef boning business, based at the same site and employing a total of 56 people, are not operating at a loss and will continue to trade.

Administrators are still searching for a buyer for these parts of the business.

A Manchester-based Kosher meat business, with five staff, also remains unaffected.

One production worker, who has worked for Great Harwood Food Products for six years, but did not want to be named, said: "I went in at 6am, we were called to a meeting at 9am and by 9.05am I had my coat on and was walking out.

"It was very emotional.

"What has really upset a lot of people is that the bosses didn't have the decency to come and say thanks very much for the work we had done.

"A lot of us have worked there for a number of years. We feel like we have been abandoned."

All the production staff have been laid off and only cold store, maintenance and some office workers have been kept on to help wind the business down.

At its peak, the company, which buys and processes meat for sale in supermarkets, once exported to the EU and countries including South Africa and Sweden.

But it has struggled to come to terms with the effects of the BSE crisis and the effects of foot and mouth disease in 2001.

Ian Stokoe, a joint administrator for Price Waterhouse Coopers, said: "The company had been very successful in the past, but a high proportion of its business was the export of beef products, which took a down turn following BSE and foot and mouth and it never recovered from that."

Mr Stokoe said: "We have kept the business going since September, while there was hope that we might find a purchaser.

"But unfortunately, since Christmas, it has become apparent that purchasers were not going to conclude on the deal.

"We couldn't continue to lose money so we reluctantly took the decision to close the business."

Hyndburn MP Greg Pope , pictured, left, said his sympathy went to the workers who had lost their jobs.

He added: "It is a long-standing company in Great Harwood and a lot of people have worked there for a long time. Whenever someone loses a job it is a tragedy for them and their family and Great Harwood could well do without this unpleasant surprise so early in the New Year.

"The silver lining is that unemployment in the town is at an all-time low and there are other jobs around in the economy for those workers who have been made redundant."

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