Almost 300 people have tested positive for coronavirus at sandwich factory, Greencore in Northampton.

The food distributor and manufacturer has ordered several staff to self-isolate and “proactively testing” following an increase in cases within the area.

A total of 292 people has tested positive for COVID-19 in the outbreak, 213 of the results came back through the factory’s private testing while 79 where confirmed through the NHS.

Greencore, who employ 2,100 people said work will be “continuing as usual”, adding they have no concerns about its products being affected from the outbreak.

The latest spike within Northampton may increase the chances of the city entering a second lockdown, which has already been identified as a “hot spot” area.

Lucy Wightman, director of Public Health at Northamptonshire County Council, said the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the town increased from 67 in the week ending 1 August up to 85 for the week ending 8 August.

She said: “We are working with colleagues at Greencore in Northampton after the discovery of an outbreak of COVID-19 in the workplace.

“This has been supplemented by support from the local infection prevention and control team and Northampton Borough Council’s environmental health colleagues.”

She added: “It is evident that Greencore has highly effective measures in place and they continue to work extremely hard to exceed the requirements needed to be COVID-19 secure within the workplace.

“Northampton borough has been experiencing a high number of cases over the last four weeks and residents and employees have been asked to ‘act now’ to follow additional measures, to avoid a local lockdown or further government intervention.”

A statement issued by Greencore, said: “As a result of the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the Northampton area, we took the decision to start proactively testing all of the colleagues at our Northampton site.
Advertisement
“We can confirm that a number of colleagues have tested positive for the virus and are now self-isolating.

“We are liaising closely with PHE East Midlands, Northamptonshire County Council and Northampton Borough Council, who are fully supportive of the controls that we have on site.”

Earlier today, it was reported Coventry-based fruit distributor Fyffes Group Limited had confirmed ten colleagues had tested positive for coronavirus.