By Conor Sharkey

A Strabane food processing company has reassured its employees over their future, after it announced five redundancies on Friday due to the economic downturn.

Rumours began to circulate over the weekend that Dublin Road Industrial Estate-based Glen Fresh Foods was in financial difficulties and close to shutting altogether.

The speculation has since been dismissed as "absolute nonsense" by management at the plant.

Established in 1999, Glen Fresh currently employ just over 30 staff. In an expansion move last year, almost £0.5m was spent upgrading machinery and improving the overall size of the business.

Glen Fresh Business Consultant Fiona Stewart admitted on Monday that sales had dropped off by 20 percent due to the Credit Crunch. But, Ms Stewart added, the redundancies were the result of internal restructuring rather than actual lay-offs.

"We did some restructuring within the company and there were five position redundancies. Basically there was an imbalance in the amount of management staff we had compared to our floor staff and that needed to be addressed. But all those involved were offered alternative employment within Glen Fresh. Three of those involved in the restructuring process accepted the alternative positions.

"Over the weekend we started to hear the rumours that the factory was closing. I can tell you that that is absolute nonsense.

"We have seen a 20 percent drop in business due to the economic down turn but the company is still going very strong and there wil be no further redundancies," Ms Stewart