Johnny Walker leaves Kilmarnock

Kilmarnock was in shock on Wednesday morning with the bombshell news that the Johnnie Walker plant is to shut with the loss of 700 jobs.

The devastating news was broken to staff at a mass meeting in the Hill Street bottling plant while simultaneous meetings took place at all of Diageo’s Scottish bases.

Diageo’s packing operations will be split between plants in Glasgow and Fife, making the historic Kilmarnock base redundant.

Diageo, which owns the Johnnie Walker whisky brand, is cutting 900 jobs between its plants at Kilmarnock and Port Dundas, while 400 new jobs will be created through the expansion of a packaging plant in Fife.

The company claims it had to go from three plants to two and Kilmarnock was earmarked for closure because it required the most work to bring it up to scratch.

Johnnie Walker was established in Kilmarnock in 1820 by founder John Walker and has maintained links with the town ever since, a fact stated on labelling. But Diageo today admitted it would have to review the whisky's label ahead of the plant's closure in two years' time.

Johnnie Walker is one of Diageo's oldest whisky brands and claims to be the world's top-selling Scotch whisky, with 16.3 million cases sold each year.   (MTI)