By Paddy Meehan
Food workers at the Enniskillen-based Pilgrim Foods took all-out industrial action on 2 September 2026 to fight for a decent pay rise from a deeply profitable company.
Workers took action after weeks of negotiating, and previous industrial action had failed to bring Pilgrim Foods Europe to the table. The company, which produces a range of processed foods, had reported pre-tax profit of £128 million. This industrial action will impact a number of high street brands such as Fridge Raiders, but the company has still refused to meet workers’ demands.
In an ongoing cost of living and housing crisis, some of the lowest paid workers at Pilgrim were receiving only 11p above the minimum wage and unpaid breaks. A survey carried out by the workers’ union Unite found that 39% had to borrow to make ends meet, including 3% who had gone to a loan shark. For a company like Pilgrim Food Europe, their profit margins are all they care about.
Food production essential – end profiteering
Food production and processing has become an incredibly profitable venture for huge conglomerates to take over and squeeze every last penny out of. This is happening in Pilgrim, both with wage suppression as is going on at Pilgrim and with the overly processed and dangerous to our health products that are being churned out.
Other agri-capitalists, like Moy Park down the road from Enniskillen, are destroying Lough Neagh to make super profits. A BBC Spotlight investigation in 2024 found hundreds of environmental laws allowing effluent to get into the waterways, leading to a crisis in the lough. All this by a company valued at over £1 billion.
An important stand
These legal breaches, paying poverty wages and the cheap and dangerous products are not by accident; they are the result of running our food network for profit, and extreme profit at that. This is why the stand taken by the Pilgrim workers is so important.
We have the ability to feed every single person with locally produced, high-quality, animal-friendly, and environmentally helpful produce at affordable prices. The only thing standing in our way is the need for massive global corporations to make a killing. This must be brought to an end by bringing these companies into democratic public ownership so we can produce in a way that ends the exploitation of workers and nature.
