LEEDS wine merchant Winerite is to close within the next few weeks with the loss of around 70 jobs.
The company, which is owned by Sussex-based national wholesaler Palmer & Harvey McLane, has a large storage and distribution factory on Gelderd Road.
Nobody was available to comment at Winerite but a spokeswoman for the firm's parent company confi
rmed today that the closure would go ahead following a consultation process.
She said: "A formal consultation process began a few months ago and is now completed.
"Closure of the site is expected towards the end of September.
"Around 60 to 70 jobs will be affected."
The announcement comes just months after Palmer & Harvey McLane Ltd bought Leeds family wholesale firm Youngs – based at Cross Green Approach, on the city's Cross Green Industrial Estate – for an undisclosed sum.
Youngs delivers retail convenience products nationally, with over 1,000 customers, mainly based across the North and the Midlands.
The business had been family-owned for 90 years and delivered annual sales of over £110m in 2007.
The spokeswoman said that a number of employees were likely to transfer to Youngs but she confirmed that many would be made redundant.
Move
She said the move to close the Leeds site had followed a decision to shift the distribution of products previously handled there to other storage sites which were more local to the firm's customers.
Palmer & Harvey McLane, which is known as Palmer & Harvey, is one of the largest privately-owned companies in the UK and has annual sales of over £3.8bn.
It delivers good to clients ranging from big name supermarket groups to small convenience stores and garage forecourt retailers.
A former worker at Winerite claimed: "The firm has been run down for a number of years.
"Staff were given notice some months ago that the firm was looking to relocate the Winerite business but the closure will still have come as a shock."
The closure is the second big name casualty in the transport and distribution sector in Leeds in recent weeks.
Last month Macfarlane Transport, based on the Cross Green Industrial Estate, went bust with the loss of around 300 jobs – the victim of spiralling fuel costs which left the £20m business unsustainable.
nigel.scott@ypn.co.uk
The full article contains 389 words and appears in EP Leeds First & County newspaper.
