Workers at cake company R&K Wise remained tight lipped yesterday, following the announcement that 540 of them would lose their jobs.

Some employees said they had been told not to speak to the Press, others simply did not wish to comment.

The Evening Advertiser revealed yesterday that two of the company's Swindon factories in Groundwell Road and Headlands Grove were to close after being bought out by food manufacturer, Northern Foods. The Swindon firm had debts of £5m.

R&K Wise produces cakes for a number of high street shops, including Marks and Spencer. It was founded in 1938.

One employee, Kiarm Johal, arrived at work yesterday after taking Monday off sick. She has worked at the company for five years and said she did not know anything about the redundancies but knew there was due to be a meeting that day.

Speaking in broken English, she said: "People are upset. I will have to look for another job."

Section manager Hector Espinosa said: "There are no job losses now. We still have lots of work left to do for a long time."

But the truth is that next autumn there will be job losses. From now until late next year the work at the two Swindon factories will be slowly phased out, leading up to closures.

Swindon Job Centre will be on hand over the coming months to help people cope with the job losses. Julie Leigh, manager of Swindon Job Centre, said the bakery informed her of the job losses formally by letter yesterday.

She said: "Some people have been offered the opportunity to relocate, but realistically, how many of those people will want to move from here to the north of England?

"Our next move will be to offer whatever support and help we can to help these people find jobs.

"We will set up a meeting with the company to talk through all the alternatives and see how we can help the people find work in the area."

She said that previously job centres have been set up on site at companies where large scale redundancies have been made and said this is a possibility for R&K Wise.