Top UK food firm announces thousands of roles in East Midlands

Date posted: July 8, 2021

A man with blue hair covering and white coat writes something on a board. He is in a factory with yellow chips on a conveyor belt

One of the UK’s leading manufacturers of freshly prepared food has announced it will be recruiting for 1,500 food production jobs across its 23 UK factories.

Seven of those locations are based in Nottingham, Lincolnshire, and Leicester where a total of 936 new jobs will be created.

Bakkavor is a leading provider of freshly produced meals for many of the UK’s supermarkets.

Its factories make meals, salads, pizza, bread, and desserts for stores including Tesco, M&S, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, and already employs around 17,000 people in the UK.

The company, founded in 1986, says it is pleased to have remained open for business for the length of the pandemic, working round-the-clock to produce essential food.

The firm says that now the nation is re-emerging from COVID-restrictions, consumer demand for freshly prepared food is normalising, adding that the company believes its recruitment drive will offer a welcome boost to local communities around the UK.

Chief People Officer at Bakkavor Donna-Maria Lee said:

We’re immensely proud of our people and I would like to thank all our colleagues that have worked so hard during the pandemic, helping to keep the supermarket shelves stocked at a critical time.
As we re-emerge from lockdown, we have a wide range of jobs available at a large number of our well-established sites, all offering great career development opportunities. It’s important we continue to invest in the communities where we do business and we hope our employment drive will help many families to rebuild their lives after more than a year of lockdown.

The Midlands locations where Bakavaar will be recruiting include:

Newark, Nottinghamshire – 196 jobs
Bourne, Lincolnshire – 207 jobs
Boston, Lincolnshire – 144 jobs
Holbeach, Lincolnshire – 143 jobs
Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire – 104 jobs
Spalding, Lincolnshire – 89 jobs
Leicester – 53 jobs.

The food company operates 23 factories across the UK and is said to offer apprenticeship and graduate training programmes and has recently won the Jobs Crowd annual award for ‘Best Company in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)’ for its apprenticeship programme.