WHITBY Creamery is to lay off 50 of its staff later this year.

Dairy Farmers of Britain (DFB) announced the redundancies as part of its plans to restructure its Whitby Creamery by ending its own-label yoghurt manufacturing, and concentrating on milk and cottage cheese production by the end of the year.

The Whitby site was bought by DFB as part of the acquisition of Associated Co-operative Creameries from the Co-operative Group in August 2004. It has been under review since then.

This decision will result in approximately 50 redundancies at the site when yoghurt manufacturing ceases later this year.

DFB has promised to work closely with local employment agencies to offer other employment opportunities, both within DFB and within the local community.

Chief executive Malcolm Smith said: "Own-label yoghurt production at the site is not profitable and we have not been able to secure the price increases necessary to return it to profitability.

"Our ultimate responsibility as a business is to our farmer members, who are our shareholders, and this decision has been taken in the best interests of the overall DFB business.

"We will look to build on the successful product lines at the site and will continue to invest both resource and money to drive both regional and national branded product manufacturing from Whitby."

Updated: 11:20 Friday, April 29, 2005