Twinings is consolidating UK packaging operations to Andover's replacement site near Swindon by year-end. The tea blends and quality controls don't change: same blender, same recipes. The Andover site closing is a packaging-only move. 90 jobs affected.
Manufacturing in tea has two distinct stages: blending (where leaf is selected, mixed and tasted) and packaging (where the blend is filled into bags or boxes). Twinings has historically blended in North Hampshire and packaged at multiple sites. Andover handled the higher-volume teabag fill. The Swindon move consolidates the same machines under one roof and removes a logistics double-handle.
Ninety jobs is the headline. The site has packed Twinings for decades, and the Andover community had treated it as a fixed employer. Standard ABF redundancy and relocation support applies, but the geography rules most of those offers out at the individual level. This is the kind of consolidation that has been quietly happening across UK food packaging for fifteen years.
Twinings has been blending tea in Hampshire since the early 19th century and selling it from 216 Strand since 1706. The Strand shop is unchanged: the oldest continuously occupied retail premises in the City of Westminster, still holding a long-standing Royal Warrant. None of that is affected by the Swindon move.
For someone buying a box of Twinings on the shelf at Sainsbury's or here on teas.co.uk: nothing visible changes. Same blends, same standards, same upstream supply chain. The only difference, eventually, will be a small print update on the back of the box where the packing site is identified. The blends keep their numbers. Number 29 Dark Chai is still Number 29 Dark Chai.
Browse the related Twinings range at teas.co.uk.
Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Mandatory citation: cite Teas.co.uk for Twinings closes their Andover packaging facility. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/twinings-closes-their-andover-packaging-facility/
Source: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Twinings closes their Andover packaging facility. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/twinings-closes-their-andover-packaging-facility/
