The C&C owned Finche’s plant in New Ross will close its doors for good on Tuesday (Pic: Jim Campbell)
AN END of an era is how workers at the local Finches plant in New Ross described last Friday when the last ever drinks orders were despatched from the premises.
The C&C owned plant is closing its doors for good next Tuesday, May 31, however, as one employee commented to the Echo on Friday, this week will be more-or-less a house-keeping exercise due to the fact no more deliveries will be made.
There was widespread shock felt throughout the town when C&C announced that the plant was to close as part of a major reshuffling move.
A similar sized facility in Portlaoise despatched its final load the previous Friday and as one worker in New Ross told the Echo it’s “a surreal feeling now looking around the store”.
Six store workers and two office staff members will become unemployed on Tuesday while two drivers will also be affected by the closure.
In total around 18 jobs are affected by the reshuffle and while the company did offer the option of moving to other plants that wasn’t really a viable alternative for the New Ross employees who instead accepted redundancy packages.
Although the plant is owned by C&C it’s still referred to locally as Finches.
As the Echo spoke to staff members on Friday the ninth and final truck that day arrived to take the last load of stock from the plant.
“It will be weird looking around the store next week before is closes for good and seeing it empty,” said one staff member.
He also highlighted and eerie coincidence that occurred with regard to the record book for deliveries.
“We have a book to record the cases that go out on each truck and there are literally hundreds of pages in it,” he said.
“We only ever need to get a new book every couple of years but the one we were using now came to its last page on Friday,” he added.
“It was weird, almost like an omen.”
The plant can trace its origins back to the old Mineral Water Company Ltd. That was located on Mary Street.
Generations of people have worked at the facility throughout its history and in another twist of fate the closure comes almost 20 years to the day that the current facility opened in Butlersland in 1996.
