Oxfordshire coffee factory refuses to return worker plaques

Dutch coffee-making giants Jacob Douwe Egberts (JDE) announced last year that its plant off Ruscote Avenue in Banbury, would shut.

The factory is home to an honours board made up of plaques honouring those who worked there for 30 or more years.

The long-service Honours Board, with over 600 names of employees who worked for more than 30 years, is a key part of the factory’s history.

JDE is preserving the legacy of its Banbury factory before its closure, including preserving the original plaques.

Campaigners have been working for over a year to get their own plaques back, or their families plaques back.

Now, the company and Cherwell District Council have confirmed plaques will be displayed for the community.

Councillor Lesley McLean, Leader of Cherwell District Council, stated the council’s support for preserving these “historic items” in recognition of the factory’s contribution to Banbury.

Gordon Boffin, partner of Jo Mobley who has been instrumental in the campaign to return the plaques, said the recipients and their families just want them back.

Jo Mobley is attempting to reunite more than 600 others on the board with theirs, as well as her fathers

Ms Mobley has started the Facebook page ‘help reunite 30 years service plaques from JDE’.

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Workers for JDE coffee plant, which has closed (Image: Contributed)

The Facebook group has more than 230 followers with workers and family members alike trying to retrieve the plaques.

Talking to the BBC, she said: “It started as a very small mission and its ended up very big – it’s snowballed into finding more than 600 names.”

“I would like every person, or as quite a few have passed away, any of their families to be reunited with their plaques,” she said.

The group was working with the Labour MP for Banbury, Sean Woodcock, to retrieve the plaques.

The original plaques from the factory and the Bird’s cockerel gates to the factory are familiar landmarks in Banbury.

The gates will also be displayed to the community following the closure.

The factory, which opened as a General Foods plant in 1964, produced household brands like Bird’s Custard, Kenco, and Tassimo.

JDE Peet’s is also donating over £24,000 to various local organisations, including Banbury Young Homelessness Project, The Sunshine Centre, Banbury Museum, and The Horton General Hospital.

The funds were partially raised by auctioning equipment from the site.

The factory also have an over 18-year long partnership with Katherine House Hospice in Adderbury, which it has donated more than £62,000 to.

The company has pledged to continue providing the hospice with coffee for the next two years.