Mr Kipling Factory Stays Open During ‘Exceedingly Bad’ Coronavirus Outbreak

By Tony Winterburn • Published: 30 Aug 2020 • 7:21

The Mr Kipling bakery sends six workers home but the factory stays open as a coronavirus outbreak is reported.

Mr Kipling, Britain’s best-loved cake brand, is STILL making exceedingly good cakes even though a number of its workers contracted the virus, Premier Foods said that the six workers at its Stoke-on-Trent factory who had tested positive for Covid-19 are currently self-isolating at their homes on full pay.

The bakery, in Trent Vale, Stoke-on-Trent, produces millions of Mr Kipling cakes and pies each year. The firm said it believed the workers, who represent just 0.9 per cent of the total workforce at the site, were infected in the community rather than in the actual work-place after carrying out an investigation.

As a precaution, a number of other workers at the site, who came into close contact with the infected employees, are also self-isolating at home according to the Stoke Sentinel.

The spokeswoman for the bakery said: “The health and wellbeing of our colleagues is our absolute priority, and we have done everything we can throughout the pandemic to protect our teams. We have seen a very small number of colleagues test positive for Covid-19 at our Stoke factory, reflective of an increase in cases in the wider Stoke-on-Trent/Newcastle-under-Lyme area. As a result, we have introduced further protective measures on-site, in addition to our already stringent hygiene and safety procedures”.

The site remains operational with owner Premier Food saying the infected staff only make up 0.9 per cent of the workforce. image: Twitter

Stoke-on-Trent Council confirmed a cluster of coronavirus cases emerged and were linked to a food manufacturer in the Potteries, adding that three of the workers were ‘socially linked’.

Coronavirus outbreaks at food factories are not uncommon and there have been plants shut down recently across the UK. More than a week after it was confirmed that nearly 300 members of staff had tested positive for the virus, all staff were told to go home and isolate at the Greencore factory who produce sandwiches for M&S.

NB. I hate to break the news but in fact, Mr Kipling himself never actually existed, he was an invention by marketing men who wanted to give a traditional family feel for something that is actually industrially produced. TW