ANXIOUS staff at Monkhill Confectionery were due to meet with top directors of owners Cadbury Schweppes at the York factory today to learn their fate under new management.

Also there to answer crucial questions about the future of the plant, in Low Poppleton Lane, will be Steven Dodds, managing director of Blackpool-based Tangerine which, with a £58 million cash offer, has won the bid to take over the Monkhill factories at York and Pontefract, plus sites at Cleckheaton and Chesterfield, from Cadbury Schweppes, starting next month.

Tangerine has already given an assurance that none of the factories will close. But John Kirk, York area organiser of the GMB union, will be seeking assurances at the meeting that jobs are safe too.

Monkhill, whose revenue was expected to top £76 million last year, manufactures two million sweets every year, including household brands such as Sharps of York, Barratt Sherbert Fountains, Jameson's chocolate confectionery, Trebor Basset mints and, at its Pontefract factory, Butterkist popcorn.

Meanwhile, today's meeting will be one of a series of get togethers with management and staff in the run-up to the transfer, said a Cadbury's Schweppes spokeswoman.