The locations of UK food businesses with coronavirus outbreaks

Timeline 

11 May   

Unions call for urgent action after a worker at Northern Irish meat producer Moy Park’s Dungannon site dies after contracting Covid-19.

15 May

Three workers at a Cranswick meat processing factory near Barnsley die from coronavirus. 

17 June

A major outbreak at the 2 Sisters food factory in Anglesey, North Wales is revealed with 51 confirmed cases. The number of people infected rises to over 200 within a week.

The factory is closed on 18 June after the personal intervention of 2 Sisters founder Ranjit Singh, despite having carried on operating since 28 May when the outbreak was first uncovered by management.

Following the news, Welsh authorities scrap plans for local schools to re-open and consider imposing a lockdown on the island of Anglesey. 

19 June  

Almost 40 staff at Oscar Mayer-owned Rowan Foods test positive for Covid-19. The Wrexham site has a total workforce of 1,500 and the number of confirmed cases rises to 97 five days later. 

An Asda meat factory in  Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire is closed after an outbreak is reported to have left around 100 workers self-isolating. The factory is set to reopen this week but numbers of confirmed cases are yet to be confirmed.

24 June

Public Health Wales reveals it is investigating another incident centred on the Kepak Food Group plant in Merthyr Tydfil, with initial reports of 33 cases since April.

23 June

Canned food giant Princes confirms a total of 19 Covid-19 cases at its Wisebch site and a 24-hour site closure.

26 June

Tulip confims three cases at its Tipton plant, with a further 16 employees in self-isolation - taking the total cases at the West Midlands factory to 35 since March. 

3 July

Young’s Seafood’s Annan plant in Dumfries & Galloway is identified as ‘high-risk’ following the identification of a Covid-19 cluster in the Scottish Borders. One plant employee is also confirmed to have contracted the virus, though Young’s stressed the worker had been on holiday since 19 June and contracted the virus “as a result of community contact with an external party”.

The staff member had made no contact with anybody from the site since going on holiday, Young’s added. Precautionary testing over the coming days of 134 employees at the site returned negative results.

3 July

2 Sisters Food Group confirms it has reopened its Llangefni site, a fortnight after production was temporarily halted. By 12 July, Public Health Wales had confirmed a total of 221 cases at the plant, alongside 138 at Kepak’s Merthyr factory and 305 at Rowan Foods in Wrexham.

3 July

Walkers confirms at least 28 staff have tested positive for coronavirus at its Leicester plant.

12 July

Some 73 cases are confirmed at Herefordshire-based veg grower AS Green & Co, with a total of 200 workers self-isolating. The outbreak is the first to be recorded at a farm in the UK.

13 August

292 employees test positive at Greencore, which makes food to go products for M&S, Moulton Park Industrial Estate site in Northampton. 

17 August

2 Sisters Food Group temporarily closes its Coupar Angus processing plant in Tayside after four Covid Cases were cofirmed among its workforce. Fyffes also closes its Coventry banana ripening plant for two days after 30 cases were confirmed.

18 August

More than 70 workers at Bakkavor’s Newark factory receive positive results for Covid-19 after all 1,600 staff members at the plant are tested. 

20 August

Cranswick announces the temporary closure of its Ballymena plant due to an increase in local transmission across Northern Ireland and “a number of confirmed cases” at the plant, which employs 500 staff.

21 August

Greencore announces the temporary closure of its Northampoton plant following the positive tests it confirmed earlier in the week. 2 Sisters also confirms the number of positive cases at Coupar Angus has risen to 110.

22 August

An outbreak is confirmed at Banham Poultry’s plant in Attleborough, Norfolk, with seven positive cases prompting a wave of testing by local health officials.

2 September

Millers of Speyside became the latest meat supplier to temporarily halt production, after confirming seven cases at its factory in the Scottish Highlands.