Hovis Pauses the Avonmouth Strike as Belfast Pay Stands Apart

About 60 Hovis distribution drivers at Avonmouth were due to start an indefinite strike on 24 September, then Unite paused the walkout after late talks produced a new pay offer. The company will not say what is in that offer, and the drivers still have to vote.

The fight was never only the rejected 3% rise. Unite has spent the week measuring Avonmouth against extras already tabled for Hovis drivers in Belfast, inside a bakery business Associated British Foods only finished stitching together in July.

An Offer Hovis Will Not Name

Unite, which represents the Avonmouth distribution drivers, said continuous strike action due to start on 24 September had been called off after eleventh-hour pay talks. Regional officer John Sweeney said the union had decided to pause industrial action for a vote so members could have their say on a new offer from Hovis.

A Hovis Bakeries spokesperson said union representatives at the Avonmouth bakery had agreed to suspend industrial action after a day of talks, and thanked Unite for working to reach that stage. The company declined to describe the revised package.

Pay talks for some Avonmouth staff started in April. Until the late offer, Hovis had called a 3% rise “fair and responsible” and said it was disappointed by the strike decision. The pause is a suspension, not a settlement. If members reject the new terms, the walkout can be put back on.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The pause: Unite halted a continuous strike set for 24 September so about 60 Avonmouth drivers can vote on a revised Hovis offer.
• The old number: Drivers had rejected a 3% rise that Unite treated as a real-terms cut against RPI of 3.4%.
• The parent: Associated British Foods completed the Hovis purchase on 8 July 2026 and folded it into Allied Bakeries as Hovis Bakeries.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The new money: Neither Unite nor Hovis Bakeries has published the revised percentage, backpay, or extras.
• Belfast parity: Unite asked for the Belfast commission and holiday premium; it is not clear those items are in the Avonmouth offer.
• The ballot: No result has been issued since the 24 September pause.

Deliveries from the Bristol depot were due to continue while that vote is organised. That is the immediate point of the pause for shops that take Hovis bread, buns and muffins from Avonmouth.

Belfast’s 2p Commission Is the Real Benchmark

Before the late talks, Unite said Avonmouth drivers wanted the same enhancements offered at the Belfast depot on top of the 3% rise. Those extras, on the union’s account, are a commission of two pence per product for all items sold, and a holiday premium of 50% above the contracted basic hourly rate for staff who work more than five designated holidays, including Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

A 2p commission on every unit a driver moves is a different kind of pay from a headline percentage. It rises with volume. The holiday premium pays extra on the days when bakery depots are under the most pressure. Avonmouth’s rejected package had neither item on the public record.

AVONMOUTH VERSUS BELFAST

Hovis Bakeries has not confirmed Unite’s description of the Belfast extras, and it has not said whether any of them sit in the document now going to Avonmouth members. The gap the union put on the table is still the one the vote has to answer.

Why Avonmouth Measured Itself Against Northern Ireland

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham made the comparison the union’s public test. She said Hovis is owned by an incredibly profitable company that can more than afford to pay the same rates to its Avonmouth workers, and that instead of favouring one group it needs to extend benefits to other workers.

Hovis is owned by an incredibly profitable company and can more than afford to pay the same rates to its Avonmouth workers. Instead of favouring one group, it needs to stop prioritising greed and extend benefits to other workers.

Sharon Graham, general secretary, Unite

She posted the same line on 23 September, the day before the strike had been due to begin.

🪧 STRIKE 🍞@hovisbakery is owned by an incredibly profitable company and can more than afford to pay the same rates to its Avonmouth workers.

📢 Instead of favouring one group, it needs to stop prioritising greed and extend benefits to other workers. https://t.co/0F3sM7Ti9y

— Sharon Graham (@UniteSharon) September 23, 2026

Graham’s target is the parent, not the depot manager in Bristol. ABF’s last full-year figures, for the 52 weeks ended 13 September 2025, show an adjusted operating profit of £1,734m on group revenue of £19,459m. Grocery, the division that housed Allied Bakeries, posted adjusted operating profit of £478m. Unite put the July Hovis purchase at around £75 million; ABF has not published a price.

Equalising Avonmouth with Belfast would set a template the new bakery unit would then have to defend at other sites. Holding the extras in Northern Ireland, and buying time with an unnamed offer in Bristol, keeps that template from spreading while integration work is still under way.

About 5,500 Workers in a Loss-Making Bread Trade

ABF completed its purchase of Hovis Group from Endless LLP on 8 July 2026 and combined it with Allied Bakeries, its UK bakery arm. From that day the two ran as Hovis Bakeries under the line “Nourishing the Nation”. George Weston, ABF’s chief executive, called completion a step toward a profitable UK bread business and said the deal would need care as costs are taken out of production and distribution. The group expects the purchase to be marginally dilutive to earnings in financial year 2027, then accretive after that.

Sarah Arrowsmith, chief executive of Hovis Bakeries, has put the combined operation at 26 sites and around 5,500 people. She said the work now is to revive brands, become a stronger own-label partner, and use a direct-to-store network. On 22 September, two days before the threatened Avonmouth stoppage, a Hovis Bakeries spokesperson still described “important work” to merge with Allied Bakeries, which is the integration, not the share sale.

The Competition and Markets Authority cleared the deal on 16 June 2026 after a phase 2 inquiry. The inquiry group found that if the merger did not go ahead, Allied Bakeries would exit Great Britain and Northern Ireland entirely. Cyrus Mehta, who chaired the group, said the evidence showed how hard many UK bakeries have had it, and that Allied Bakeries would likely leave the market if the deal did not proceed. The CMA also recorded significant Allied losses over 14 years, falling packaged-bread demand, a shift into lower-margin own-label, and rising bills for energy, wheat and distribution.

That is the business into which about 60 Avonmouth drivers tried to pull a Belfast-style deal. The parent wanted a cheaper combined delivery map. The union wanted one rate across the map. A last-night offer that nobody will describe is how both sides stepped back from testing those aims on the road.

Hovis Said the Lorries Would Still Run

Unite had warned that a continuous strike at Avonmouth would leave shops in the South West and into the West Midlands short of Hovis products. The union said thousands of loaves are made at the site each hour, and that the depot also sends burger buns and muffins. Sweeney told shoppers any shortages would be the fault of a “half-baked” pay offer.

Hovis Bakeries disputed that forecast. A spokesperson said the company did not anticipate “significant or lasting shortages”, and that plans were in place to limit the effect on retailer customers. The original 3% offer, the company said, was fair and responsible, and talks were still open.

WHAT THE DEPOT PUTS ON THE ROAD

• The site: Distribution drivers based at Avonmouth, Bristol, feeding shops in the South West and parts of the West Midlands.
• The drop: Hovis bread plus other bakery lines the union named as burger buns and muffins.
• The volume claim: Unite said thousands of loaves are made at the site each hour.
• The company line: Contingency plans, and no expectation of significant or lasting gaps on shelves.

Once the strike was suspended, that argument went idle. Lorries could run while members read the new paper. The company’s shortage denial never had to be tested. The union’s leverage, a continuous stoppage at a plant that bakes through the night for supermarket cages, is still sitting behind the ballot.

Belfast Halted Baking for 11 Days in 2021

Avonmouth is using Belfast as a pay mirror because that plant has already shown what a stoppage does to Hovis in Northern Ireland. In May 2021, Unite said Hovis workers at the Apollo Road bakery in south Belfast ended an 11-day strike after 79% voted to accept an improved offer. The union said the deal included an 8% rise over two years, with the first increase backdated to January 2021, and that not a single loaf was baked in 12 days, leaving shelves short of Hovis bread, bagels and pancakes.

That history is why Graham can talk about “one group” with a straight face. Belfast has used strike ballots to move money before. Avonmouth is asking to be paid like a site that has already won extras, inside a company that has just been told by the competition watchdog that the old Allied Bakeries network was on the way out.

THE PATH TO THE PAUSE

1. April 2026: Hovis Bakeries says pay talks for some Avonmouth employees begin.
2. 16 June 2026: The CMA clears ABF’s purchase of Hovis Group, finding Allied Bakeries would otherwise exit GB and Northern Ireland.
3. 8 July 2026: ABF completes the purchase from Endless LLP; Allied Bakeries and Hovis Group start operating as Hovis Bakeries.
4. 22 September 2026: Unite warns of an indefinite Avonmouth strike from 24 September over the 3% offer and the missing Belfast extras.
5. 23 September 2026: Late talks produce a new offer; Graham repeats the call to extend Belfast-style benefits.
6. 24 September 2026: Unite suspends the walkout so members can vote; Hovis Bakeries still will not publish the terms.

The 2021 Belfast stoppage closed an oven. The 2026 Avonmouth dispute has, so far, closed a diary date. Members now decide whether the unnamed paper is worth more than a return to the gates.

The Ballot Still Hangs Over the South West

The Retail Prices Index that Unite used as its yardstick was 3.4% in the year to August 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics, which still publishes RPI even though it no longer treats the series as accredited official statistics. That is the print behind the union’s 0.4 point “pay cut” claim on a 3% offer. CPI, the Bank of England’s target measure, rose 3.1% over the same year. Food and non-alcoholic drinks rose 1.3%.

Drivers did not bargain against the food line. They bargained against RPI, and against a Belfast package that pays extra on volume and on holidays. Hovis Bakeries answered with a number it will not put on the record, and with thanks to Unite for pausing a strike that would have been the first public labour test of the merged company.

Matching Belfast would travel. A quiet accept vote would leave the richer extras sitting in Northern Ireland while Avonmouth takes whatever is in the sealed offer. The about 60 drivers still have to choose, and the company still has not said which of those two futures it put in the envelope.