Nestlé UK is planning to cut almost 300 jobs and move production of the Blue Riband chocolate biscuit to Poland. The Telegraph reports that the company’s sites in Yorkshire and Newcastle will be hardest hit, with 143 jobs cut in York and 110 in Fawdon, 15 in Halifax and seven in Girvan.

The  GMB and Union trade unions protested the planned move, saying the shift of an iconic British brand to Poland is unacceptable.

"Nestlé [is] throwing people's lives, and those of their families, into turmoil for the sake of increasing profit margins," GMB general secretary Tim Roache said. "These factories should be exporting chocolate — not people's jobs.”

Roache also called on the government to step in and reassure millions of workers that this is not just the “tip of Brexit iceberg.”

The company said the cuts would take place through 2017 and 2018 and would be achieved through financial incentives. The proposed changes include amended shift patterns at each factory and, at Fawdon, the most complex of Nestlé's UK confectionery sites, the transfer of Blue Riband production to a Nestlé factory in Poland. This would mean being able to simplify and focus Fawdon's operation.

Nestlé UK said that it would engage in a 45-day consultation of the proposals with trade unions.