Hazlewood Foods' new owner Greencore has introduced sweeping changes to the structure of the convenience foods specialist just weeks after completing the £258m purchase. Hazlewood's Derby head office will be scrapped as the first step in a comprehensive decentralisation plan to increase efficiency and put divisional management in more direct contact with retail customers. Functions handled from Derby will be transferred to one of three UK divisions. The grocery division under Gerry Smith, and sandwich & pizza division under Anne Truelove, will be expanded. All ready meals operations will be combined into a third division headed by prepared meals chief Colin Wright. A Hazlewood spokesman said that the move was consistent with Greencore's philosophy of running its business through divisional managements. Former chairman Peter Barr has relinquished all executive duties at the firm with immediate effect. He will become a non executive director of the enlarged company. {{NEWS }}