Great news for workers as barrel firm planned factory
THERE was good news for workers in 1971 as a major new employer announced plans to open a plant in Burton.
It was announced in late September 1971 that plans had been completed by Grundy (Teddington) Limited to open an engineering plant in the heart of Burton.
At the start, some 100 jobs would be available with the prospect of further jobs likely as the plant expanded.
Grundy (Teddington) Ltd was the parent firm in the Grundy group of 13 companies at home and overseas with varied interests ranging from products for the brewing and catering industry to architectural metalwork and electronics.
The firm’s main headquarters were in Middlesex and two of their largest factories in the same county were devoted entirely to making metal beer containers from nine gallon casks and kegs up to 180 gallon pub cellar tanks and transportable tanks.
The firm was a pioneer in 1958 of the lightweight metal beer barrel which made Grundy one of the largest manufacturers in the world in its field.
It had the capacity to supply some 14,000 of the well-known “Grundycasks” and “Grundykegs” every week to most breweries in the UK and to many overseas.
An important part of the Grundy organisation was its ability to renovate and repair damaged beer containers. Previously, this repair work had done at its Ashford factory in Middlesex.
However, to further improve this service, the company would use the new plant at Burton to provide this unique repair facility.
Located in premises previously occupied by Bass Charrington known at the “Dixie Store”, the new factory off Hawkins Lane would occupy an area of 20,000 sq ft.
It would be fully equipped with special purpose-built machinery with a handful of selected staff moved from Middlesex to help with training and to establish the factory.
Fast-forward 30 years and it was announced in mid-december 2002 that the Grundy factory would close by February 2003 with the loss of 60 jobs.
The news was not well received as some early redundancies would take place just before Christmas in spite of the parent company – now known as Alumasc Grundy – announcing pre-tax profits of £7.5 million for the year.
The firm passed some of the blame for its demise in Burton to the change of brewery owners. It said in 2001, Bass had placed an order for 32,000 22-gallon barrels yet the following year after the Coors takeover of Bass, the order dropped to just 1,600 barrels.
It said many breweries were moving towards a container pooling system which significantly reduced the demand for new containers by individual breweries with repairs also declining.