Sandwich-making as a slice of real life

The Daily Mail, Britain's celebrity-obsessed mid-market tabloid, certainly knows how to spark a heated debate.

And it's not afraid of a bizarre headline to make its point: "Is there no one left in Britain who can make a sandwich?" thundered its front page on Monday, as the paper's lead story exposed the sorry tale of a sandwich factory in Northampton being forced to recruit hundreds of workers from eastern Europe because the locals don't want the jobs.

The company in question is Greencore, the London-listed Irish food group that is Britain's biggest sandwich maker, producing more than 400 million of them a year and supplying the likes of Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsbury's and Tesco.

According to the Mail, bosses from Greencore flew to Hungary to recruit up to 300 workers to fill posts at its £30 million factory, due to open in Northampton in early 2016.

Their overseas recruitment mission had been forced upon them because only a handful of locals wanted the jobs on offer. Despite the Mail's outrage at the decline in Britain's culinary expertise, a lack of traditional sandwich-making skills would not appear to be a barrier to employment at the factory, with the roles on offer ranging from machine setters and quality monitors to cleaners and porters. For the Daily Mail, renowned for its strident views on immigration and Britain's welfare system, the sandwich-making crisis "will re-ignite claims that Britain's generous welfare system has created a generation unwilling to work, while acting as a magnet for foreigners".

Workers in Budapest might expect an annual salary of some £7,000 but could earn double that in Northampton. Although Greencore was reluctant to specify the wages on offer, based on the minimum wage, the annual salary would be £13,520. The job adverts specified that shift working, at nights and weekends, would be required.

For Greencore, the lack of local response was more a reflection of Northampton's relatively low unemployment rate, which matches the national average at 6.8 per cent, although human resources director Allyson Russell admitted it was "not always the kind of work" that people wanted to do.

The story sparked a torrent of parody on social media websites. Hundreds tweeted pictures of their own inept attempts at sandwich-making, with anything from hardback books, whole cartons of eggs, unpeeled bananas, bottles of wine, cutlery – even someone's own fingers – made into mock sandwiches. Dozens of family pets were also forced to pose for pictures, encased in slices of bread, as social media had a laugh at the Mail's expense. The consensus: Britons are unable to make a sandwich.

But the story alarmed local council leaders in Northampton, where some 8,000 people are unemployed. David Mackintosh, who leads the council, felt Greencore had not looked hard enough and warned that local services might be unable to cope with an influx of overseas workers.

Pointing out that Greencore has been in the town for 40 years, and already employs more than 1,000 people there, he said the council would provide support to help the company recruit locally.

Local MP Brian Binley penned a strongly worded letter to the company, saying the furore over the newspaper's story had "harmed the image of Northampton at a time when we are trying to attract new industry". He also criticised the company for failing to approach Northampton University, which is located almost adjacent to Greencore's site and has 13,000 students, to see if they might be available for part-time employment.

The Confederation of British Industry was dragged into the debate, although its president, Sir Michael Rake, concentrated on the lack of skilled workers rather than the intricacies of sandwich-making. It was a story he had heard many times from employers, who are unable to find people skilled enough or are willing to do the work and have no choice but to recruit overseas.

Rake was speaking on Monday at the CBI conference, which also heard from Labour leader David Miliband and the prime minister, David Cameron. Cameron did not become embroiled in "Sandwichgate" but underlined his determination to ensure Britain's young had the skills to compete with EU migrants in the jobs market and that the welfare system rewarded those in work.

Fiona Walsh is business editor of theguardian.com