HUNDREDS more jobs at a biscuit factory will be lost after a union rescue plan was rejected.

Workers at Burton's Foods, in Moreton, UK, were told on Friday the firm will press ahead with plans to axe seasonal packing work, with the loss of 219 jobs, because keeping it would be "commercially unviable".

But it has agreed to retain a chocolate refinery on the site, keeping around 60 jobs, reported the Liverpool Echo.

Packing work will be outsourced to DHL, in Knowsley, and Burton's said 58 staff will be able to transfer.

But Wallasey MP Angela Eagle, who has campaigned to save the factory, said it was debatable whether it would be practical for workers, many of them seasonal or part-time, to make the journey.

Other concessions include enhanced redundancy packages and a one-month extension to the closure date to the end of December.