Wholesaler Inverarity Morton is to close its depot in Milnathort and move all operations to its new Glasgow HQ.
The firm’s managing director Stephen Russell cited “tough trading conditions” and “spiraling maintenance costs” at the Perthshire site as reasons behind the decision to close the depot.
He said the Milnathort depot, which was the head office of Forth Wines until its acquisition by Inverarity Morton in 2013, required £500,000 to upgrade it.
The wholesaler will now conduct a consultation process with affected staff.
It said it hopes to minimise redundancies among the 29-strong Milnathort workforce, which includes telesales, admin, warehousing and marketing staff, adding that the management team is looking at measures, including relocation packages, for those based at the site.
The closure will be phased between March and May, when the 75,000 sq ft site will be put up for sale.
Inverarity Morton will move all operations to its100,000 sq ft site in Thornliebank Industrial Estate, south of Glasgow, which it moved into last September.
Russell said tough trading conditions were a key factor in the decision.
“The last twelve months haven’t been easy for the licensed trade,” he said.
“A lot of businesses are counting the cost of the aftermath of the new drink drive legislation in Scotland and continued slow economic recovery. Poor trading has had a knock-on effect on our business.
“We conducted a full business audit in order to identify ways to cut costs without compromising our service. Moving our entire business under one roof made complete commercial sense and will allow us to operate far more effectively and efficiently.
“We looked at all the avenues open to us and the most feasible solution was to close Milnathort. At the time of the acquisition, having a second depot was invaluable, because we were bursting at the seams in our old HQ.
“Now that we have moved, we are more than able to absorb the entire Milnathort operation within our existing infrastructure so our customers will see little or no difference to the way their accounts are managed.”
