Thanks to Chris Haden for bringing this to our attention.

A protest rally is to be held at the Aston HP Sauce factory in Birmingham the first weekend of June. The rally, which is in support of this historical British institution and its workers is sure to alert Heinz that their decision to close the factory is simply not on! The protest is also designed to serve as a wake up call to the British parliament who have been harshly criticised for their lack of action in supporting British industry when threatened with closure as is the case with HP Foods.

The rally is to be held on Saturday, June 3^rd at 10:30am and will start at Aston Park and will end up at the HP Sauce Factory.

If you have more information regarding the rally which you would like to pass along to other site visitors, please contact me.

EDIT: Corrected Rally Date & location - Thank you Kev for pointing it out to us.
EDIT: Revised rally start time (was 11:00am).

Last week I was saddened to report the announcement by Heinz to close the Aston HP Sauce Factory in Birmingham, England. Since then, I setup an online petition in support of the factory and those who work there. In fact I’ve been doing precious little else since; trying to get the word out via this site and through correspondence with site visitors.

It’s now with great frustration and sadness (my hands are shaking as I write this) that I pass along the following information I received this afternoon by an HP Foods employee who has expressed the desire to remain anonymous. If this doesn’t get the British blood boiling, I don’t know what will!

Heinz have used a figure of £2M as the sum they would save annually by moving
production of HP to Holland and moving L&P bottling back to Worcester. We are
currently analysing these dubious figures. However, if the sales of HP sauce were to
drop by a fifth the £2M sum that they would save would be lost, therefore
eliminating the reason to close the factory!

The proposition presented by Heinz, an American Company, is to take only a hand full
of bottling equipment and a collection of recipes to Holland to make all the HP
sauces, which includes the BBQ range, chilli, curry and Daddies, using different
ingredients using a different process and by people who have never made it before,
who will try to make their sauce taste as close as possible to the original.

Heinz will not be making HP in Holland as such; they will be making a sauce that may
taste similar!

Is there not some sort of legislative recourse which could ultimately put an end to all of this? Perhaps one of the MPs who is supporting the boycott of Heinz products could contact me with a brief explanation of the available options open to them or rather what stands in their way to the protection of this British national institution!?

Again, I urge all site visitors to sign the petition and to encourage everyone you know to do the same!

My ’source’ at HP Foods has provided us with some further details regarding how the Heinz decision to move production of HP Sauce to Holland will affect workers currently at the HP Foods factory in Birmingham.

The HP Sauce factory as is now well known has been a part of the Birmingham area for over 100 years and during that time has served as a steady employer for the local community. Many of the workers have relatives also working at the plant and have done so for many years. It is the majority of these workers who will lose their jobs if the plant is closed. My ’source’ informs me that while Heinz intends on keeping a Research & Development team in England, the 10 current HP Foods employees must re-apply for only 8 available positions to be located in Worcester at the site where Worcester Sauce is made.

I’m also told that John Bull the campaigner was outside the factory for 2 days but has not been seen since. John Bull has been seen outside the Houses of Parliament for similar campaigns including the closure of the Rover site. HP Foods employees continue to try to get the word out and their sentiment has been quoted in the press. Acting in frustration, people have also been heard to blame the French company Danone for selling HP Foods to Heinz (American) in the first place. One can only speculate at this point as to what might have been…

In the mean time, Mandy has kindly informed us of the following:

ITN is reporting that Labour MP Clare Short is encouraging British consumers to boycott HP Sauce following the announcement that HP Sauce production will be moving to Holland.

As previously reported, MPs from various parties are rallying together and have tabled a Commons motion condemning the proposed closure of the Birmingham plant, terminating approximately 125 jobs in the process.

The employees, who were informed of the decision in an email, were outraged! “The workers came to work, and they were sent home. No notice, no discussion.” said MP Clare Short. “They turned up today weeping. We’re saying in Birmingham we’re going to all stop buying it. I think we should punish them. Don’t buy HP Sauce and let the company hurt for this.”

I encourage our British friends to write or call their local MP and encourage them to get behind this motion!

If you have any further information that you would like to pass along on how this issue or if you are directly involved with HP Foods - please write me and I’ll share your story here.

I also strongly encourage all new site visitors to please sign the petition and to spread the word!

Many thanks to Lee Agnew of the BBC for supplying us with the following.

From: Political correspondent Paul Rowley.

More than a hundred Mps have now joined the campaign to keep H-P sauce
in Britain.

The company’s new owners Heinz want to close HP’s factory in Birmingham,
with the loss of 125 jobs.

The firm is planning to move production to Holland, claiming the U-K
plant is not financially viable.

The Mps, from all parties, have signed a Commons motion, calling on the
firm to reconsider the decision, arguing that the brand is a “national
institution”.

The sauce is widely used at Westminster as its bottles have the
trademark picture of the Houses of Parliament on the side.

The former Cabinet Minister Clare Short has already called for a public
boycott of the product in an effort to force a reprieve.

Now in a separate motion, the Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington Sion
(pron SHAUN) Simon is demanding that if production is moved out of
Britain, its American owners should NOT be allowed to use the Houses of
Parliament as a marketing brand.

The motion is signed by 105 Mps in total, Khalid Mahmood, John Spellar,
Lorely Burt, Lynda Waltho, Rob Marris, Sharon Hodgson, Graham Stringer,
David Crausby, Roger Godsiff, Shahid Malik, Dari Taylor, Michael
Clapham, Mark Hendrick, Lynne Jones, Sarah McCarthy-Fry, Nia Griffith,
Adrian Bailey, Mark Pritchard, Michael Connarty, Kevin Barron, David
Winnick, John Mann, Ann McKechin, Andrew Miller, Helen Southworth, Bruce
George, Michael Fabricant, Ian Stewart, Ian Austin, Sir Gerald Kaufman,
Eric Illsley, Ian Lucas, Paddy Tipping, Marsha Singh, Ashok Kumar, Kevan
Jones, Martin Salter, Des Turner, Mike Hancock, Barbara Follett, Derek
Wyatt, Peter Bottomley, Ian Gibson, Clive Efford, Jeremy Corbyn,
Siobhain McDonagh, Neil Gerrard, Charlotte Atkins, Mark Fisher, Joan
Walley, Bill Olner, Richard Burden, Geoffrey Robinson, Ken Purchase,
Judy Mallaber, Dennis Skinner, Tom Levitt, Keith Vaz, Jeff Ennis, Denis
MacShane, Chris McCafferty, George Mudie, Sir Nicholas Winterton, Jim
Dobbin, Lindsay Hoyle, Janet Anderson, Claire Curtis-Thomas, Eddie
O’Hara, Louise Ellman, Peter Kilfoyle, Bob Wareing, Angela Eagle, Eric
Martlew, Frank Cook, John Cummings, Ronnie Campbell, Jim Cousins, Bill
Etherington, David Clelland, Betty Williams, William McCrea, Bob Spink,
Hywel Francis, Mark Tami, Wayne David, Gregory Campbell, David Hamilton,
Paul Farrelly, Iris Robinson, Helen Goodman, David Anderson, Dawn Butler,
Kerry McCarthy, Kitty Ussher, Andrew Gwynne, Natascha Engel, Celia Barlow,
Rosie Cooper, John Leech, Jessica Morden, James Duddridge, Lyn Brown,
Katy Clark, Sammy Wilson and Mark Hunter.