The Body Shop to shut its Corby distribution centre as pummelling of town's jobs market continues

The Body Shop is pulling its direct selling distribution operation out of Corby, with the loss of dozens more jobs in the town.

The cosmetics company employs 28 permanent staff and 35 agency workers at the warehouse in Earlstrees Road where it distributes products for its Body Shop At Home (BSAH) arm.

During the pandemic lockdowns, multi-level marketing companies experienced a short-lived boom that meant the BSAH needed extra capacity to send out products to its distributors. It opened its new operation in Corby two years ago, but since then, demand has dropped.

Now the firm, which was purchased by Avon-owner Natura&Co in 2019, is consolidating its BSAH work to its site in West Sussex and shutting its Corby distribution centre, which is based on the same site as Avon.

Twenty eight permanent staff including a number of managers were told at the end of last week that they would begin a redundancy consultation period. Another 35 agency staff will also lose their roles at Body Shop.

It comes after a dreadful month for Corby’s jobs market, with almost 1,400 roles lost already in 2023.

Hundreds of redundancies have been announced, with this newspaper exclusively breaking the news of hundreds of job losses at Berry Superfos, Cambridge Weight Plan, iForce and Orchard House Foods.

A spokesperson for The Body Shop said: “As we review and adapt to the environment in which we operate we need to make changes that impact our staff at a distribution centre in Corby who focus on operations for our direct selling business, The Body Shop at Home.

"Going forwards we will utilise our existing centre in West Sussex for our distribution needs.

“This is in no way a reflection of our committed team in Corby who have been valued members of our collective for the past two years, following a significant short-term rise in demand for The Body Shop at Home during the pandemic.

"Any changes that impact our teams are difficult decisions to make and we are working closely with those affected at this time.”