production operator

van driver

operator

associate

machine operator

GREENCORE

I have worked as a production associate in the mornings at Greencore however I was working for the agency. Appalling place to work at, they treat you as a number and have no care for your health whatsoever. I have seen the way they have make sandwiches and they do not care what ingredients go in they just make it look like they care but they don't. Some of the sandwiches won't even have anything inside it and they just send it for packaging. 

The worst thing is anyone that's not from Europe does not get respected at all by any workers and you are a slave to them and they will treat you horrendously. Shambolic place to work in even the managers treat you like absolute disaster. They do not have any type of appreciation or any sympathy for the workers and as if you join the company from the agency group they are even worse.

This place is run by immature romanian's that stink and always talk in their language and they all have disgusting behaviour. Especially the  supervisors, they will make you break your backs and work like a slave while they stand and watch you. They shout at you like your in school doing something wrong. They do not give u any sort of training before you start you just dig in when you arrive at your first day and expect you to be good at it and if your not they will send you home early. They send you home if your from agency aswell. 

Do not work for this company full of illegal immigrants and I hope this company falls to the ground. I do not even realise how they have customers such as sainsburys, asda, tesco etc when their sandwiches and other food is worthless and made by stinking romanians and some of them don't even wear gloves.

They do not follow any sort of procedure and I hope this company dies down because it is one of the worst place I have worked in. Please do not work here because I have had the worst experience with back pains that is everlasting since 4 months. 

Production, goods in, kitchen and despatching jobs are the worst. I would say hygiene is the best but some people treat you like slaves and think your only a vulnerable cleaner and will make mess on purposely for you. Especially the workers think they have more priority over you because they are from Mediterranean area such as the Hungarians, Bulgarians, Romanians. 

They treat everyone like absolute worthless imbeciles and they show priority to supervisors like they are big bosses of the company whereas they are on the same level as the associates just might be getting paid a little extra. They give you 1 hour unpaid break split into two, which is awful and won't let you go toilet like your in school which is extremely unfair and they will tell you off and shout at you when you do the job and trust me you will not like it. Greencore is the worst job and I hope the CEO of Greencore has a look of what his worthless company is like making people work their heads off to make over 25000 sandwiches daily for only £50. Awful Job, appalling.

I have worked in the food industry for some years.  I have never worked for a company that falsifies paperwork around temperature, failsafes and CCPs and I have left after 5 weeks because of this.  It is impossible to learn a routine around the paperwork as there is always someone who will do part of it for you to ensure the hurry up culture is maintained.  I did speak to someone about it and it was dismissed.  

The hardest part is being able to stand for 12 hours.  Breaks are 2 x 20 mins and 1 x 35.  

There is no enjoyable part as for me there was the constant worry I was sending out product that would make someone ill.

There is not very often a visible manager around, the area being run by co-ordinators.  The managers I did speak to were very nice, but I am not sure it always translated down and certainly did not appear to make any difference.  

Health and safety wise, it would appear that there is not much care taken.  There are lots of nip and trap points on the lines, which are not very clean in the packing area.  Steps seem to slip and slide and everything is high up requiring over-reaching or climbing on steps which have no hand rails either.  There are earplugs occasionally, but no mandate for hearing protection and the alarms which go off constantly on machinery are piercing.  With regard to covid, no-one appears to understand how to wear a mask and very few people appear to enforce it.  There is little handwashing in the area I was in, even though there was a CCTV camera in the changing room before you enter the factory,  People lined up to clock out at 6 for sometimes 15 minutes, and some would get their cars, put the hazards on outside and come back in to fraudulently claim the last 15 minutes of work.  The way the site is set out with both colleague traffic and lorries on the same route, this also meant that the roadway could be blocked.  There is a massive turnover of people.  Training is also poor as I was asked to sign a manual handling document on how to pull a pallet truck (arms behind, moving forward) which is utterly incorrect and the following week shown a film on how to do it that was completely different.  

I would not recommend working there for the resultant pay, although they are paying enhanced through the summer.  They encourage you to join by saying that there is a chance the pay will remain at the enhanced rate, but it is very unlikely.  Why would they pay that rate, when they have people contracted at a lower one?




I worked through agency, every now and then, and only weekend wages are worth all this effort. Weekdays wage is a joke. 

Start times differ; you might be needed to start at 3.30am, or 12pm, at least on agency basis. I avoided early starts – firstly, simply because I don’t find it enjoyable to get up at night time, and secondly, because I find the night shift transport office staff unpleasant to deal with, to say the least. It’s quite opposite with the day shift.

Hygiene of many drivers seems to be on a very, very poor level. Interiors of several vans are so repulsive, that on one or two occasions I refused to drive unless they give me another van. As a general rule, I always wear gloves when in contact with a van, and I keep a disinfectant agent handy.

That a van can smell inside, like a homeless person’s lair is one thing. The other is that you can see dried particles and stains of unknown origin everywhere - on the seat, steering wheel, dashboard, windscreen… And often also lots of rubbish left behind.

Technical condition of many older vans leaves much to be desired, but the newest ones are nice.
  
There is no air con – which becomes a problem, when you are stuck in rush-hour traffic jam. Huge windscreen quickly changes driver’s cab in a greenhouse. Even with windows fully open, you’ll be soaking wet with sweat.  

With the major client I have delivered for, you’ll have to load and carry heavy trays all day long. Unless you are a seasoned, full-time driver, having been on the same route many times, your work day will last at least for 11-12 hours. You are supposed to have only one 30-minutes break – at least as an agency driver. Other clients are usually better – way less stops and heavy lifting.

There are two cameras in the van, one of them facing you all the time, which is not that bad, because finally newer vans won’t be ruined so quickly inside.

If you are desperate and need any job quickly, or if you simply like driving and want some extra money, go for it. 

It’s a dirty, heavy, exhausting, heavily underpaid job, but at least it gives you more freedom than warehouse or factory jobs.

The company is pumping millions into automation which is a great thing. Higher numbers of items being processed and less staff equals more profits. The facilities and looks of the building inside and out are very good. Health and Safety is strict enough, food hygiene is, and your ability to learn and progress is also there for you. The company wants to strive ahead.

The only massive issue is management (Managers, Supervisors and Co-ordinators) they've been around for so long and are all connected in various departments. If you have an issue with one person you'll have an issue with a large variety of people who'll make your time at Greencore a living nightmare. Management have also employed family and friends to work for Greencore making it very biased.

 The best approach i can give to anyone joining Greencore is keep yourself to yourself and you'll be fine. If you're put on a production line which is manually fed try and get away your back will appreciate it when you're older. If you have a small clash with someone who's got some connection to management, save yourself the stress and find yourself a new job. They'll watch your every move day in and day out and pull you up on anything they can do. Loads of silly mind games will start they'll even approach you and make you feel uncomfortable blatantly.

If anyone from a position as high as factory manager or higher reads this please investigate into your departments. I wasn't planning on Greencore being my forever job but once i got involved and started to learn i enjoyed it more and more i was able to see your vision for the company and the investments you've made. You need to dig deep into management and watch people they'll soon make mistakes and make themselves visible. You're losing too many good staff because of a collective of management who feels like they call all the shots and own the place. 

I've seen so many decent people emotionally leave, resign or dismissed unfairly in my time at Greencore from the whole spectrum of the board.

Worked in low risk at Greencore Manton Wood for years and wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone unless you’re really desperate for the work. The environment is unpleasant and toxic for the most part. You’ll be treated as “just another number” so be prepared to do work that you don’t want regardless of what you say.

There are simply too many managers. In low risk alone you’re looking at over 20. Don’t even think about stopping to talk to colleagues or else one of the many managers will have you doing 3 other jobs while they sit (non-socially-distanced) in an office. Whether it’s the “coordinators” or the higher up managers, be prepared to be treated like you’re worthless by power hungry people who forget that they work in a sandwich factory and are nothing special.

For the amount of stress that comes with the job, the pay really isn’t worth it. The pay itself isn’t all that great unless you’re working weekends. 

A good point is that you might make some actual friends there, but it’s hard to judge who they are because of the amount of people who will backstab you or talk bad behind your back. This is one of the reasons morale is so low.

I’ve seen my colleagues disciplined for taking days off due to family emergencies or for their mental health. While being disciplined, you’ll have snobby HR staff throwing the book at you and encouraging managers to give you harsh punishments. They’re more for the company than for the workers. Greencore like to act like they care about their colleagues and their mental health but that couldn’t be further from the truth. You’re met with people in charge who won’t help you or will actually bully you for any problems you may have.

Overall, like I said, if you’re desperate for the money or need a job, this would be the place because they’re so desperate for staff due to so many people leaving that you’ll almost always get on. However, if you don’t want to be treated like dirt, have your mental health affected or generally work in a dead end job then avoid this place like the plague.


Greencore Group plc is a leading international manufacturer of convenience foods. They have 22 convenience foods manufacturing sites in the UK and the US; and employ in the region of 12,000 people. 

The Convenience Foods Division provides a wide range of chilled, frozen and ambient foods to major retail, manufacturing and foodservice customers in the UK and Ireland, as well as many in Continental Europe, the US and beyond. They have long-standing experience in customer brand as well as providing a selection of house and licensed brands. The Division consists of six manufacturing category businesses comprising 15 sites in the UK and seven in the United States. They also operate a UK nationwide chilled van distribution fleet to service individual outlets. 

At Greencore, they aim to provide a distinctive approach that combines consumer understanding with customer care and a passion for providing the very best products and service.

As a leading food manufacturer and major employer in the core markets in which they operate, they believe they have a duty to maintain strong integrity and sustainable corporate and social responsibility practices for the benefit of their people, their customers, their suppliers, the environment, their shareholders and our communities. 

They aim to operate in a sustainable and responsible manner. To embed and drive this approach within their organisation they have developed a framework, which they call ‘The Greencore Way’. This framework is based on four core operating principles:

    People at the core

    Great food

    Business effectiveness

    Cost efficiency

The Greencore Way sets out how we apply these principles to our behaviours and actions on a day to day basis. It also creates a vision and goals for our desired outcomes with their key stakeholders - their people, their customers, their suppliers, the environment, our communities and their shareholders.

I worked for Greencore Ltd in the Carmarthen branch for 3 years and absolutely loved the work, the customers were great and I couldn't ask for a better job. The pay was great, every week had a good chunk of money and we often had a pay ride.

After our first Manager left, we had a new Manager who bullied me, making me do extra work then complaining about me being later than usual (having extra calls will add time to my day obviously)

After a long battle, they found he was cheating the company and fired him due to that reason, not the reason that he was bullying me.

Then we had another Manager who was great to begin with. My van broke down in the middle of Rhondda Valleys in Summer time, the van temperature went up very quickly due to the sun being right on the van, so I called up and said I would not be able to deliver the good as they have been over the Contracted temperature for over the Contracted time. I was told and I quote "just deliver them and if they say don't know there is anything wrong, then just deliver"... this is completely against health and safety regulations, baring in mind, if I delivered and someone was made sick, I would be prosecuted, not Greencore.

After a very long fight with Management around Greencore, blaming me for the vans temperature going too high, me not delivering the goods and destroying the stock, I ended up very ill. I suffered very badly with depression, that a company I had been with for almost 3 years were trying to get rid of me due to me sticking to their Contract.

I ended up leaving on sick with depression and I could not go back as I never had an apology.

The company itself is disgusting, the way they treat their staff (or at least, me) is completely against everything they say.

I started working in Greencore through agency just over 4 years ago. First few weeks were with few hour shifts and many cancellations (as it was agency). 11 months after I started working there I was offered a place in company, but as it turned out later in, it was only because of specific job role that causes people back pain as there was no rotations on work tasks. Even then I’ve asked for line coordinator support, but no luck for most of the time. That’s where I personally started developing mental health issues and to this day I’m still struggling with it along with a life long health condition. Lack of support from management is unfortunate. Most of the time it feels like the more you give to them, more they want to take away. Quite a lot of different cultures around and lack of respect between managers (line coordinators and zone managers) and line operators are unforgivable. As people are already saying, workers are slaves and are bullied to work longer hours. 
Personally I’ve got quite a lot on my sleeve with my health and it’s hard to work there when there’s barely any support from management. I’m struggling most of the days. 
The good part is cheap sandwiches. Some people working there are actually quite nice. 
Without a fight, it’s hard to survive there. Unless you’re in one of those culture groups with Rumanians (quite a few managers there of this nationality and workers in general). 
Haven’t had much experience with HR. 
Unfortunately I don’t know much of SSP. Last time I had heard anything of it, they only pay after day 3. Means that if you’re sick for 5 days, you’ll be paid for 2 and even then just about £90. 

What they don't say in the advert is that a lot of the runs you'll be given start at 4am, meaning you'll have to be in about 3am to get your run sorted and loaded.  This eventually plays havoc with your mental health as it is impossible to adjust your sleeping pattern to go to bed at the same time as a child.  In bed at 7-8pm to get up at 2am to get ready, it's also dangerous driving with no sleep.  Lying awake at 12-1am knowing you've to get up at 2am and do an 8-10hr shift is soul destroying.  Add that to only one day off a week, with promised days off never materialising, and it soon catches up on you.  The staff turnover in this place is unbelievable as a result.  That said, the management are OK and the warehouse staff are a good bunch.  The job itself isn't difficult and if you could adjust and get to bed at 7-8pm without being disturbed and don't mind working 6 days constantly, you'll be fine.  One last thing, that £380pw sounds appealing doesn't it?  That's why they put it there, to entice you, it works out at £318 after tax which is very poor for 48hrs and with unpaid overtime sometimes works out below minimum wage.  When they say administration duties are involved in the role, what they mean is, they don't hire any administrators and get the drivers to do it.  The amount of paperwork is horrendous and very time consuming, all to cut costs.  You have been warned.

Every day is different, even if I personally do the same thing from the beginning of my shift till the last minute of it. 
I've learned to be more confident about what I do and how I do it, communication skills and some technical things that I wouldn't have learned if I didn't work around food.
About management I can say that not all of them are open and up to some good conversation, not around everyone anyway, I still find it strange that most of the management team members greets with me once they pass my working area and sometimes even asks how am I doing, any why it find strange? - because they don't do that to any other person they pass, only some who have proved themselves at their job.
Most of the people in the factory are from different countries, including management team members, some are from England, but most are from different places speaking in their languages. Workplace is busy and organised.
Hardest part would be waking up for work as it starts at 6 o'clock in the morning and I don't live close by the are, where the workplace is located. And another thing would be - doing the same thing as soon as you show Front Line Managers that you can do it. Personally I think that all management team knows what I can or cannot do.
Enjoying the fact that there also are people with open mind and need to have a bit fun. It doesn't stand in a way to do their duties.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Production operator 89 salaries reported	£13.82 per hour
Van driver 74 salaries reported	£15.19 per hour
Operator 43 salaries reported	£13.64 per hour
Associate 34 salaries reported	£14.19 per hour
Machine operator 32 salaries reported	£15.76 per hour

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