Smarties are moving to Hamburg, but smart science is thriving in York

If you happen to be reading this on Friday evening, I invite you to picture me making merry at the Michaelmas Feast of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of the City of York, which is about to celebrate its 650th anniversary and of which I am a rather junior member. Our founders — mercers trading in cloth with the Low Countries and the Baltic ports — were the drivers and networkers of York’s mediaeval economy, and its first exponents of globalisation. But our merriment this week will be dampened by the latest impact of that phenomenon on the city. Nestlé, owner of the confectionery factory that is still universally referred to as Rowntrees, has just announced the shedding of 645 jobs in a reorganisation that involves moving production of Smarties to Hamburg and of Black Magic to the Czech Republic.

This follows the closure of Terry’s (the Chocolate Orange was last seen somewhere in Slovakia) and the loss of 450 Norwich Union jobs to call centres in India.