AN award-winning catering food and drink supplier on the Llyn Peninsula have announced 15 possible job losses as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Harlech Foodservice, an independent, family-owned and managed company based at Llanystumdwy, employs over 200 full-time members of staff and distributes to customers throughout north and mid Wales as well as the north west of England and west Midlands.

But in a statement put out on their Facebook page on Wednesday night, the company – run by the Foskett family – disclosed they had been under ’severe stress’ while still remaining confident about the future of the business.

“Regrettably, we have entered into a period of consultation with our employees which will unfortunately result in redundancies, expected in the region of 15 job losses across the business,” ran the statement.

“No individual, community or business has escaped the battles faced throughout the Covid-19 crisis. It has had an overwhelming impact on everyone, including the food service and hospitality sectors.

“With the closure of most food and leisure sites, at a time when the industry should have been heading into its peak season, these closures resulted in a significant overnight drop in sales for us as a business.

“We utilised the generous furlough scheme for a number of employees, operating with skeleton staff to manage the business’ daily needs.

“With no clear road map offered by the Welsh Assembly on the planned re-opening of hospitality, the business has been under severe stress.

“In order to secure both short and long-term future success, we have needed to review our entire business operating procedures and proposed a number of changes.

“We do understand that these proposed changes will have a significant impact on our employees and we aim to keep any disruption to a minimum.

“We expect a lengthy and uncertain recovery period over the next 12 months, however we remain confident about the future of Harlech Foodservice continuing to provide a great range of products at competitive prices whilst continuing to deliver excellent customer service; we have strong cash flow and will weather the storm.

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank our staff and customers for their co-operation, loyalty and hard work over these difficult times.”

Set up by the husband-and-wife team of Colin and Gill Foskett at Harlech in 1972, the late couple’s children, Jonathan, Andrew and Laura, now run the business.