Bosses at a multi-national company are keeping tight-lipped about the closure of a 192-year-old South Holland branch and subsequent job losses.
In 2019 Chicago-based ADM took over what was previously Dunn’s (Long Sutton Ltd), a seed processor it described as ‘among the oldest agricultural businesses in the country’ having been established in 1834 as Johnson and Sons.
ADM already had a 50 per cent stake in Stamford-based company Gleadell which took over Winters Lane-based Dunn’s in 2012.
ADM merged the Gleadell and Dunn’s name with ADM Arkady, the UK destination business.
Now The Voice understands the Dunn’s site is to be closed with jobs lost.
ADM has declined to comment on the situation.
“With a significant storage and processing capability and a long-standing reputation for being a safe and trusted trading partner, Gleadell and Dunn’s will be great additions to our business in the UK,” said Gary McGuigan, ADM’s president of global trade said at the time.
The company, which had 31,000 employees across 170 countries at the time, is making redundancies around the world.
Some 95 jobs will go at the end of this month with the closure of a southern cotton oil facility in Memphis.
In an announcement last year ADM said it would be laying off around 700 staff globally in a ‘major cost cutting’ exercise which will see 1.7 per cent of the global workforce, including at the European HQ in Switzerland.
But despite The Voice contacting the Swiss office and the registered company office in Lincolnshire, the company has nothing to say about the current situation.
South Holland District Council member for the area, David Wilkinson, said: “It seems another situation where large companies take over smaller ones they close them down and asset strip.
“Dunn’s have been in Long Sutton since the 70s and before that under a different name. It’s a great shame.”
