Dungannon Meats Group has announced 60 job losses following Sainsbury’s decision last October to move to a single supplier for beef products, but it said new contracts won has minimised the scale of redundancies.

Dungannon has won over £25m of new contracts since October but loosing its beef contract with Sainsbury has resulted in 95 redundancies at its Northern Ireland operations, 35 of which will be re-employed in the company as a result of its restructuring process.

A spokesperson for Dungannon Meats said: “Since October 2004, when Sainsbury announced their intention to move to one beef supplier, we have implemented a recovery plan that has already generated well over £25m of new business from existing and new customers.

“Throughout this period we have received tremendous support from our suppliers and from our supermarket and retailer customers throughout the UK, Ireland and Europe.

“As one of Northern Ireland’s leading employers, we regret any job losses, but the scale of the redundancies is now much less than we had originally feared.”

Dungannon continues to be the major supplier of lamb and lamb products to Sainsbury.