Four jobs have gone at Randalls Brewery, only three months after the new owners of the company announced that all were safe. The Guernsey Pub Company took over in April.

Now three members of staff from the brewing and bottling department have been made redundant and another has taken a voluntary redundancy package.

Randalls is in discussion over a new location for the brewery, while it is ending in-island bottling.

‘Any redundancies are a very difficult decision to make and we did not take them lightly,’ said managing director Ian Rogers.

‘We have tried to keep it to the minimum possible.’

He added that two of the staff were the youngest and with the shortest service at the company.

Randalls will move from its Vauxlaurens site, which it believes is 10 times too big. A recent review of the business revealed that the bottling and canning line was used only once a month and sometimes only once every two.

The brewery produces 40 barrels a week, but was designed for 500.

‘In order for this production facility to be cost-effective, we would need to be using it daily and our brewery bottled sales would need to be in the region of 50 times higher,’ said Mr Rogers.

The company will continue brewing in Guernsey, but then tankering ale to the UK for bottling and distribution. The current £500,000 bottling plant was switched on in July 2004. Wholesaling of its own beer, imported lagers, wines, spirits and soft drinks will continue as at present.

‘We are dedicated to continuing brewing at R. W. Randall and will do so on Guernsey, but we will need to find more user-friendly premises and build a more efficient modern brewery that is on a scale that fits our production.’

The Guernsey Pub Company, a consortium of private owners, bought the brewery for an undisclosed sum on 3 April.

Then, Mr Rogers said all jobs and the pension scheme were safe.

An announcement over employees’ future had been expected in June, after Randalls revealed its plans to relocate and send its beer for bottling and distribution in the UK.

There have also been significant shake-ups in the brewery’s pubs, with three new tenancies and rent increases, since the private consortium took over.