Moy Park being sold to rival company

The Northern Ireland-based  Brazilian owners, Marfrig Global Foods, has announced they are selling the entire Moy Park business unit to JBS, another meat processing company.

It includes the Grantham factory at Gonerby Hill Foot, which employees 1,000 workers, the bioggest employer in the town’s private sector.

A statement said the deal “is expected to be signed by the end of 2015” if given the go ahead by authorities in the EU.

Moy Park, which was bought by Marfrig five years ago, values the company at more than a billion pounds.

It opened as a chicken processing factory in 1980, when Anwick-based G W Padley bought the building after Wolsey knitwear closed.