More than 500 employees at Red Lea Chickens lose jobs

More than 500 employees at Red Lea Chickens lost their jobs via email over the Easter weekend after supermarkets slashed chook prices to $8.

The company was placed into voluntary administration on March 29, saying on its website its financial position means there’s no other option but to wind down operations.

A spokesperson for administrators McGrathNicol told Daily Mail Australia it was determined quickly during a meeting that, given the financial position of Red Lea, there was no option but to begin an orderly shutdown of the processing plant.

‘This meant redundancy notices had to be issued to employees in writing over the weekend. 

‘Tuesday 3 April was the first opportunity Administrators had to address employees in person about the closure and this briefing took place yesterday morning.’

Zagorca Ciolac, who had been working at the plant for 33 years, said times ahead will be ‘difficult’ as she has to look for another job. 

The meeting held by administrators at the Blacktown processing plant on Thursday resulted in the decision to put hundreds of employees of the family-owned business – which has been operating since 1957 – out of work.

Red Lea Chickens (file image) was placed into voluntary administration last week, and will wind down operations at its processing plant in Blacktown, in Sydney’s west

The company – which has been operating since 1957 – says on its website its Blacktown plant is ‘state of the art’ 

The company says on its website its Blacktown plant is ‘state of the art’ with more than 500 employees working there.

McGrathNicol partners Barry Kogan, Jason Preston and Kathy Sozou have been appointed as administrators.

The NSW branch of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union said it had no comment about the matter at this stage.