Bernard Matthews Closes the Derby Plant That Took Norfolk’s Work

Bernard Matthews will shut its Derby factory on 20 December 2026, with about 600 jobs going. The Shaftesbury Street South plant in Pear Tree makes cooked and ready-to-cook poultry for UK retailers, and a letter to staff set the stop date after talks that found no way to keep the line running.

Cooked-meats work was moved into Derby when the Norfolk headquarters closed in 2024. Extra floor space is now being approved in Sunderland, and the same owner kept a full German turkey payroll earlier this year.

The Letter Fixed a Date of 20 December

Workers received the letter in the week of 17 August 2026. It said “no viable mitigation has been identified that would allow the site to remain operational” and fixed “the final closure date for the site” as 20 December 2026. Management had opened a 45-day consultation on 1 July. Those talks ended on Saturday 15 August.

The company said the decision followed “continued significant financial losses”, plus “external economic challenges” and a list that included Brexit, Covid, and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. It promised help with moves inside the wider group and with local job searches. Staff were also told to expect a “phased withdrawal of both product lines and colleagues as operations wind down.”

THE 45 DAYS THAT ENDED THE PLANT

1. 1 July 2026: Managers tell Derby staff the site is under formal consultation.
2. 21 July 2026: Sunderland City Council approves a Bernard Matthews expansion at Leechmere, 20 days into the Derby talks.
3. 15 August 2026: The 45-day consultation closes with no plan to keep Shaftesbury Street open.
4. 20 December 2026: The letter’s final closure date, five days before Christmas Day.

Baggy Shanker, the Labour MP for Derby South, said he first heard of the plan when the talks with unions began, and that most of the work is leaving for other factories. “The impact on the workforce and their families can’t be overstated, particularly with this closure now being planned just a week or so before Christmas,” he said.

Norfolk Production Was Sent to Derby in 2024

Great Witchingham in Norfolk had been the firm’s home since 1955, when Bernard Matthews bought the hall and 36 acres around it. In January 2024 the company said that cooked-meats site was “loss-making and not commercially viable.” On 1 March 2024 it confirmed the shutdown. Operations were due to cease at the end of that March.

About 600 people worked there. A spokesperson said “the large majority” would be offered jobs at five other poultry sites in Norfolk and Suffolk. Cooked-meat production itself was moved to five UK plants, and those named at the time included Holton in Suffolk, Sunderland, and Derby. The receiving factory is the one now being wound down.

The company said then that it hoped to “invest and grow” the remaining East Anglia sites. Its public site now lists processing at Sunderland and at Holton, which supplies fresh turkeys. Derby, the Midlands cooked-meats plant that took in that 2024 volume, is not in that remaining pair.

Accounts Show a Profit After the Last Closure

Bernard Matthews Foods Limited, company number 10036286, was incorporated on 2 March 2016, the year Ranjit Singh Boparan’s Boparan Private Office bought the brand out of administration. Full accounts to 29 December 2024 show the first clear profit after that Norfolk cut.

Pre-tax profit was £6.88 million, against a £26.22 million loss the year before. The board said closing Great Witchingham “improved ongoing financial performance.” Turnover was £240.5 million, down from £263.9 million. Cost of sales fell to £167.5 million. Operating profit from continuing operations was £16.5 million, against an £827,000 loss in 2023. No dividend was paid or recommended.

THE YEAR THE NORFOLK CUT HIT THE BOOKS

The directors wrote that they “currently believe the Group can continue to maintain sufficient liquidity over the next 12 months” and that “Boparan Private Office Limited has the financial ability to provide support if required.” Prem Sikka, an emeritus professor of accounting, put a longer frame on the brand’s decline after the 2016 sale, saying it “never recovered from private equity.” The 2024 accounts still needed that parent support line even after the profit swing.

Sunderland Got the Extra Floor Space

While Derby was inside its 45-day talks, Sunderland City Council approved Bernard Matthews Foods’ bid for production and warehousing extensions at Unit U, Wellmere Road, Leechmere Industrial Estate. The decision came on 21 July 2026. A design and access statement said the remodelling could create about 170 jobs on a site that already has more than 300 staff.

The plans add production capacity, front-end and finished-goods warehousing, a first-floor canteen and changing block, about 50 extra parking spaces, and an extra HGV dock. The applicant told the council the project would “secure the future of the business in this location.” Officers recommended approval as a chance to grow an existing firm. One neighbour objected over odour, trees, and noise. The committee still passed it.

That is the factory that, with Holton, is left on the company’s own remaining-sites list. About 170 new posts in Sunderland do not match about 600 posts leaving Derby. Shanker’s point was narrower: the work done on Shaftesbury Street is, in the main, being sent to other plants rather than cancelled.

Who Carries the Cost in Pear Tree?

About 600 people work at the Derby plant, most of them from the surrounding area, according to a member of staff. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers is supporting members. Sharon Khiari, Usdaw’s area organiser, said the union had tried to keep the site open through the consultation and had failed.

Confirmation of the closure of the Bernard Matthews site in Derby is a devastating blow for the staff, their families and the wider community. We are extremely disappointed that the company has decided to proceed with the closure, despite our attempts to save the site through the consultation.

Sharon Khiari, Usdaw area organiser

Khiari said Usdaw’s focus had shifted to other jobs and retraining. Nadine Peatfield, leader of Derby City Council, called the news very sad for the people involved and said the workforce had contributed to the local economy for many years. Shanker said he was still pressing the firm because “this work has been done here by these workers for a number of years.”

A closed cooked-meats plant takes out a factory buyer as well as a city payroll. Nearby turkey supply then has one fewer place to go, and retailers can fill the shelf from abroad. That is the gap the company’s own import warning describes, even as it moves volume toward Sunderland and keeps a German payroll intact.

Boparan Bought a German Processor in February

On 19 February 2026, Heidemark said Boparan Private Office becomes new owner of the Ahlhorn turkey and chicken group. Purchase contracts had been signed the evening before. Heidemark stays a German unit inside Storteboom Food Group, Boparan’s European poultry arm. All 2,300 staff at its five sites were to keep their jobs, a point Christopher Kalvelage, then the owner, said had mattered to his family. The European Commission cleared the deal in May 2026 with no extra conditions.

The Derby letter still cites Brexit, Covid, and foreign wars as reasons the Midlands site cannot pay its way. The same owner, in the same year, chose to take on a full German turkey processor and to add warehousing in Sunderland. The UK cooked-meats map is being thinned. The continental payroll was protected in writing.

BOPARAN’S 2026 PLANT LEDGER

• February: Heidemark in Lower Saxony is bought and its 2,300 jobs are kept.
• July: Sunderland’s Leechmere expansion is approved, with about 170 posts in the planning file.
• August: 2 Sisters, also Boparan-owned, puts 80 of 1,600 jobs at risk at Rogerstone in Newport after about £20 million of investment.
• August: Bernard Matthews confirms Derby will close on 20 December, with about 600 jobs affected.

The wider group has already shut heavy UK capacity. 2 Sisters closed Llangefni on Anglesey on 31 March 2023, a plant of about 700 jobs. Bernard Matthews then closed Great Witchingham in March 2024. Derby is the next cooked-meats site on that list.

This Address Has Lost a Factory Before

37 Shaftesbury Street South has been a food plant through more than one owner. Perween Warsi built S&A Foods there. That operation later collapsed, with 350 jobs going in a previous shutdown. 2 Sisters reopened the building in April 2016 with 300 staff making barbecue, ready-to-cook, and ready-to-eat poultry. By 2021 it was a Bernard Matthews site, after Boparan’s 2016 purchase of the Norfolk brand.

The company’s employs over 2,000 people line still sits on its About page, with a claim that its turkey products reach nearly half the homes in Britain. That headcount is a group figure, not a Derby figure. After 20 December the Pear Tree share of it is scheduled to fall to zero.

A Bernard Matthews spokesperson said the firm had spent two years urging ministers to back a “fragile food supply chain,” and that without action on resilience, planning, and tax, “more farms and food manufacturing sites will close, increasing the UK’s reliance on lower-quality imports.” A government spokesperson called Derby a commercial decision and pointed to the Farming and Food Partnership Board as the place where domestic supply is meant to be strengthened. The letter on Shaftesbury Street still says the line stops on 20 December 2026.