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Orchard House Foods, a provider of packaged fruit products in the UK, has announced plans to close its production facility in Gateshead. The company will relocate its UK production to an existing Corby, Northampton, operation, impacting around 430 employees. Orchard House Foods provides freshly prepared fruit, fruit drinks, fruit jellies, fresh fruit yogurts, compotes and granolas to major UK retailers, supermarkets and restaurants. Steve Corby, chief executive of Orchard House Foods, said: "We understand that this is an incredibly difficult situation for our employees and our priority now is to ensure that we do everything we can to support them. Despite making significant investments in our Gateshead facility over a considerable period in an effort to turn around its financial performance, it is unfortunately still making losses that make it unsustainable over the long-term." He continued: ...“This is not a decision we have taken lightly and comes off the back of an incredibly challenging period for the sector. Like many other businesses across the UK, we have been suffering from a series of economic and business challenges. They include rising energy, raw material, transport and labour costs. There has also been a shortage of available staff to work at our Gateshead site.” Plans are to consolidate production at its existing site by the end of November this year. The company expects a significant number of new jobs to be created at the Corby site as part of the relocation.