NEWENT food processing company Freemans laid off 53 workers after a major customer called for a reduction in prices, managing director Clifford Freeman has revealed.

Mr Freeman said that all the staff laid off were agency workers and none of the employees involved were local.

Freemans took the decision to lay workers off several weeks ago, when one of the company's biggest customers, who has not been named by Freemans, called for price reductions in the chicken products supplied to them.

Mr Freeman said: "We couldn't go down that way. Margins are tight enough as it is and we would have been losing substantial amounts of money."

A long-standing contact between Freemans and the major customer in question has now ended.

The company strongly denied some media reports that the job losses were down to a 50 per cent rise in chicken feed prices.

However, Mr Freeman said it was possible that some trade customers could now be sourcing chicken products abroad to get a cheaper deal.

The loss of the temporary, agency staff means that Freemans, off the Gloucester Road, has cut its processing significantly, from 300,000 chickens a week to 250,000.

The mayor of Newent, Coun Fred Passant, said he understood the job losses had hit "casual, part-time workers".

He said: "Obviously, we don't want anyone to lose their job and this is something we regret for a local company."

Freemans, one of the town's biggest employers, has a history in Newent stretching back to 1958.