A major Mistley company looks set to shed nearly a third of its workforce.

Award-winning company Edme Ltd, the malt and malted ingredients manufacturer, is to end a 100-year tradition of producing malt syrups at its High Street base.

It will also stop making home brew kits.

But Andy Polland, sales and marketing director, today stressed the company was not in financial difficulties.

"The malted cereal flakes side of the business is extremely successful and the company is in a good financial situation," he said.

"We are one of the major suppliers of malted cereal flakes in Europe, if not the leader."

Mr Pollard said sales of malted syrups, used predominantly in the traditional brewing industry, and home brew kits, had been hit by excess capacity and a fall in exports.

The 100-strong workforce was told of the 30 redundancies, likely to be made at the end of April, on Friday.

During the 30-day consultation period they will be given the chance to come up with an alternative plan.

Although most of the jobs lost will be in the syrup section, Mr Pollard said there would be redundancies across the board and the company would do everything in its power to help its employees find other work.

Since it was set up in Mistley 115 years ago, Edme has won many awards for its products, including the Queen's Award for export achievement.

The statement issued by the company emphasised only a small proportion of the operations at the Mistley site were affected.

The announcement said: "The company's flagship products for the baking and food industry continue to show strong growth.

"The company has invested considerable resources into the development and production of bakery ingredients over the last few years and has become Britain's foremost supplier of malted cereals for addition to breads and other baked products."

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