Yorkshire food group staff face job axe as funding cut

The Regional Food Group for Yorkshire is to reduce its workforce of 26 to around 12 as the funding it receives from the moribund Yorkshire Forward ceases in March next year, 12 months earlier than had been anticipated. Yorkshire Forward itself will be abolished in 2012.

The Tadcaster-based organisation will continue in its work to support and promote Yorkshire's food businesses, but in a reduced capacity.

Its chief executive Jonathan Knight said he hoped the impact of the cuts on group members would be "minimal".

"It is important to keep this group going," he said. "However, the cuts from Yorkshire Forward are just so dramatic that we cannot continue without pruning back the core capacity we have.

"We will be aiming to do more with less. Our intention is to work alongside the emerging Local Enterprise Partnerships and are looking to remain in concert with their initiatives to make sure they recognise the importance of food and drink in their area.

"We will still have the same range of services, although clearly we will have to cut back on capacity which might mean we will not be able to respond as rapidly as we are doing now. But we will be reviewing our team and giving them all account management responsibilities."

Mr Knight added that the aim now for the food group and its deliciouslyorkshire brand was to continue working towards becoming a commercial entity and paid tribute to the outgoing staff, saying that they had done an excellent job and that the redundancies were the result of a "Government diktat", rather than a reflection of their performance.

"It is clear that the next 12 months are going to be a period of extreme difficulty across the whole of the economy. But food and drink is still a very important to Britain and particularly to Yorkshire."