MORE than 600 jobs are being axed following Unilever's announcement that it will close its Birds Eye ready-meals factory in Grimsby.

The group said the plant, which employs mostly part-time workers, was likely to close during the first quarter of next year.

It said the site, one of three Birds Eye factories in the UK, was too small to be competitive in the frozen food market.

Unilever's Ice Cream and Frozen Food division said the decision to close Grimsby followed an 11-month review of Birds Eye's three UK sites.

It said it had been concerned that Grimsby could be at a competitive disadvantage facing other manufacturers with bigger-scale and lower-cost manufacturing sites, and that it was essential to remove that disadvantage.

It said it would have preferred to sell the factory to a specialist third party partner, but efforts to do that had failed. The company also looked at a proposal to invest in the site, but decided it would not be economic- ally competitive in the long-term.

Production will be transferred to selected specialist large-scale suppliers.

Unilever Ice Cream and Frozen Food chairman James Hill said manufacturers needed large, highly flexible facilities to be competitive in the meals industry, which had significant overcapacity.