Fiddes Payne is making a raft of redundancies after the food business lost a long-term contract with the Jamie Oliver Group.
The Grocer understands that more than 20 roles are being lost out of a total workforce of about 50 staff, as the Jamie Oliver contract accounted for around half of Fiddes Payne’s products.
Although Banbury-based Fiddes Payne does not manufacture the products, it handles the product development, sales and marketing for around 25 Jamie Oliver-branded products across a range of different categories. These include ready-to-eat grains and pulses, grind mills and curry pastes which are primarily sold in the major grocers including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Ocado.
The Grocer understands the Jamie Oliver Group carried out a review of its strategy last year and informed Fiddes Payne of the contract loss in October. The notice period for it officially ran out on 31 March.
The latest accounts for Fiddes Payne were due at Companies House by 31 March but have yet to be filed. In its latest available results, the company had sales of £10.2m in the year to 30 June 2022 and made a pre-tax loss of £203.6k in the period.
It sells its own lines under the Cake Angels and Full of Goodness brands as well as products under third-party licencing agreements. The biggest of these had been the Jamie Oliver deal, but it also works in this way with the BBC, Disney and vegan brand Bosh.
The Grocer approached Fiddes Payne for comment but has not received a response.
A spokesperson for Jamie Oliver Group said: “As part of our business strategy, we completed a comprehensive review of our product offer and will announce our future plans very soon. In early 2023, we shared our vision with Fiddes Payne, and invited them into a pitch process. They were notified in October 2023 of the decision. We are proud of our long-term partnership with Fiddes Payne and wish them the best.”
Jamie Oliver Group has yet to confirm who is set to pick up its contract.
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