The American owner of the historic Tate & Lyle sugar refinery on the Thames at Silvertown is planning to shed staff because of new EU restrictions on the industry.
Tate & Lyle's is the last working factory on the Thames, and there have been fears over an outright shutdown as a result of new European Commission rules placing extra tariffs on sugar cane.
Tate & Lyle Sugars, owned by American Sugar Refining, said it was now looking to shed 30 staff, and had started a 90-day consultation. Ian Bacon, Tate & Lyle Sugars' president, said: "This is a sad day for us, and is in no part the fault of our skilled and dedicated workforce. It is entirely due to the constraints on our raw material supply created by the European Commission."
He added that the refinery had been running at 60% capacity since the rules came in.
Brussels introduced tariffs on sugar-cane imports in an attempt to tackle a worldwide shortage.
American Sugar Refining claims the action is protectionist towards German and French sugar beet growers.
