Hovis Drivers Pause Strike as Merger Pay Gap Lands

Around 60 Hovis Bakeries delivery drivers at Avonmouth paused an indefinite strike on 24 September after late-night talks produced a new pay offer. Unite, which represents the drivers at the Bristol plant, will ballot members on terms the company has refused to publish.

The walkout had been due to start that morning from a depot that supplies bread, buns and muffins across the South West and into the West Midlands. The rejected rise was 3%. The fight that produced the pause is larger: extras already offered in Belfast, inside a bakery group ABF only finished assembling in July.

Avonmouth Drivers Pause a Walkout Hours Before It Began

Unite said continuous strike action due on 24 September was called off after eleventh-hour talks. The union’s own note said the action had been paused so members could vote on a new offer, and it did not recommend a yes or a no.

After fresh negotiations, we have decided to pause industrial action to allow members to have their say on a new offer from Hovis.

John Sweeney, Unite regional officer

A Hovis Bakeries spokesperson said union representatives at the Avonmouth bakery had agreed to pause industrial action for a vote after a day of talks on 23 September, and thanked Unite for working through to that point. The company would not say what is in the revised package.

Unite South West told members the same morning that industrial action due to begin at Avonmouth had been halted so they could be balloted.

Hovis strike action has been suspended following a new offer from the employer.

Industrial action at Hovis Avonmouth, which was due to beg today, has been paused to allow Unite members to be balloted on a new offer.#hovis #bristol #avonmouth #strike pic.twitter.com/q3RLWyP6g6

— Unite South West (@unitesouthwest) September 24, 2026

Two days earlier the same union had warned shops in the West of England would see fewer Hovis lines if the vans stopped. Hovis Bakeries said plans were in place to protect retail customers and that it did not anticipate significant or lasting shortages. The gap between those two claims never got tested, because the drivers did not walk out.

The 3% Offer Trails August RPI

Members at Avonmouth had already rejected a 3% salary increase for the year. Unite called that a real-terms cut because the Retail Prices Index was running at 3.4%. The Office for National Statistics, in its bulletin released on 16 September, put the annual RPI inflation rate of 3.4% in August 2026. That is a gap of 0.4 percentage points.

The same bulletin put CPI at 3.1% in the 12 months to August, up from 2.9% in July, and CPIH at 3.3%. Unite’s comparison was to RPI, the index still written into many pay claims even though it is no longer an accredited official statistic. Hovis Bakeries called the 3% package “fair and responsible” and said pay talks for some Avonmouth staff had started in April.

AVONMOUTH’S REJECTED OFFER AGAINST BELFAST

Sweeney had put the blame on the company before the pause, saying shoppers would worry about shortages and that the strike was “the fault of Hovis who came up with the half-baked offer.” Hovis Bakeries said it remained focused on an agreement that worked for everyone. The overnight talks produced a package neither side has described in public.

Belfast Drivers Already Have the Extras

The 3% figure was only half of the claim. Unite said Avonmouth drivers wanted the same enhancements already offered at the company’s Belfast depot. Those extras sit on top of the headline rise, and they are specific.

WHAT BELFAST DRIVERS WERE OFFERED

• Sales commission: Two pence per product for all goods sold.
• Holiday premium: 50% above the contracted basic hourly rate for staff who work over five designated holidays.
• Named days: Those holidays include Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

Whether any of that is in the new Avonmouth offer is the open question the ballot is supposed to answer. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham had already framed the dispute as a choice to favour one group of drivers over another, and she pointed at the parent company’s group profits rather than the bakery unit’s own books.

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, Unite general secretary

Associated British Foods, in its annual report for the 52 weeks ended 13 September 2025, reported group revenue of £19.5bn and an adjusted operating profit of £1,734m. Grocery, the division that housed Allied Bakeries before the Hovis buy, recorded adjusted operating profit of £478m. Graham’s “incredibly profitable” line is a group number. The bakery arm is the part of ABF the competition watchdog treated as a business that might have left the market altogether.

ABF Folded Two Bakeries and Two Pay Deals

Hovis Bakeries is new. Associated British Foods completed its acquisition of Hovis Group Limited from Endless LLP on 8 July 2026 and put it into a combination with Allied Bakeries under the name Hovis Bakeries and the line “Nourishing the Nation.” Integration was due to start at once, with “substantial operational synergies and efficiencies across production and distribution,” and with restructuring costs that ABF said would make the deal marginally dilutive to earnings in financial year 2027 before turning accretive.

The Competition and Markets Authority had already cleared ABF’s purchase of Hovis on 16 June 2026 after a phase 2 inquiry. The watchdog’s finding was that Allied Bakeries would likely leave the UK bakery market entirely if the deal did not proceed, so the merger did not raise competition concerns on that basis. Cyrus Mehta, who chaired the inquiry group, said the evidence showed how difficult a position many UK bakeries were in.

George Weston, ABF’s chief executive, called completion “a significant step towards the delivery of a profitable UK bread business” and said the transaction would support the wider UK economy, “including by securing high-quality jobs.” Sarah Arrowsmith, Allied’s chief executive and now chief executive of Hovis Bakeries, went further on how the combined company intended to compete.

We will now begin the work of revitalising our brands through innovation, becoming the UK’s best own-label bakery partner and strengthening our position as the bakery industry’s route to market through our unique direct-to-store network.

Sarah Arrowsmith, chief executive, Hovis Bakeries, 8 July 2026

The Avonmouth drivers are that network in the South West. Pay talks for some of them had started in April, while Hovis was still with Endless, and they were still open when ABF took the keys in July. By late September the new unit was citing “important work” to bring Allied Bakeries together with the newly acquired Hovis business as part of its disappointment that a strike had been called.

FROM APRIL TALKS TO THE 24 SEPTEMBER PAUSE

1. April 2026: Hovis Bakeries says pay negotiations for some Avonmouth employees begin.
2. 16 June 2026: The CMA publishes its final report and clears the Hovis deal.
3. 8 July 2026: ABF completes the purchase and launches Hovis Bakeries with Allied Bakeries.
4. 22 September 2026: Unite warns of shortages and confirms an indefinite strike from 24 September.
5. 23 September 2026: The company and union hold a day of talks.
6. 24 September 2026: The walkout is paused so members can vote on a new offer whose terms stay private.

A strike over a 3% floor, so soon after a deal sold on distribution savings, is the labour consequence of that timetable. Harmonising two driver packages was never listed in the 8 July note. It arrived anyway, in Avonmouth, with Belfast as the comparison site.

What the New Offer Still Hides

Neither side has published the revised numbers. Hovis Bakeries declined to comment on the contents when asked on 24 September. Unite’s pause statement is four sentences long and names no figure, no commission, and no holiday rate. Members are being asked to vote on a document the rest of the country cannot read.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The pause: Indefinite strike action due on 24 September at Avonmouth did not start.
• The headcount: Around 60 Unite distribution drivers were due to take part.
• The rejected rise: 3%, which Unite measured against RPI of 3.4% in August 2026.
• The Belfast template: 2 pence per product and a 50% holiday premium after five designated days.
• The owner: Hovis Bakeries, formed on 8 July 2026 when ABF combined Hovis with Allied Bakeries.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The new percentage: No public figure has replaced the rejected 3%.
• The extras: It is not known whether Avonmouth is being offered Belfast’s commission or holiday premium.
• The ballot timetable: No voting window or count date has been published.
• The fallback: Unite has not said whether a rejected offer puts the indefinite strike back on.

That silence is the leverage both sides kept. Unite can still pull the vans if members vote no. Hovis Bakeries can say it moved far enough to halt a strike without locking itself, in public, to a Belfast-style add-on that other depots would then cite.

The Vans Carry the Route to Market

Unite said thousands of loaves are made at Avonmouth each hour, and that a stoppage would have hit Hovis bread, burger buns and muffins in shops from the South West into the West Midlands. That is a union estimate, not a company production figure, but it names the products on the trucks. Hovis Bakeries answered with contingency plans and a forecast of no significant or lasting gaps on retailer shelves.

A national bread scare grew faster than the depot. Some posts on 25 September still described an ongoing walkout, a day after Unite had already paused it. Sixty drivers at one plant were never going to empty every Hovis bay in Britain. They could empty the ones their own routes serve, which is why the company talked to them through the night of 23 September instead of running the contingency it said it had ready.

Arrowsmith’s July pledge to strengthen a “unique direct-to-store network” is the same system those drivers operate. Distribution was also one of the two places ABF said synergies would be found. A two-tier driver deal inside that network is expensive either way: pay Belfast’s extras at Avonmouth, or run two rule books on one fleet while the merger is still being built.

Hovis Bakeries had used the “well-publicised economic challenges facing the UK bakery sector” as a reason the 3% offer should have been enough. The CMA’s clearance rested on a version of that same pressure, namely that Allied Bakeries looked likely to exit without the Hovis deal. The drivers’ answer was the Belfast comparison, not a sector lecture.

Drivers Will Ballot With the Strike Only Paused

The ballot now sits with the Avonmouth membership. Sweeney’s line was that members should have their say. Graham’s line, posted the day before the talks, was that the parent could afford to stop favouring one group. Hovis Bakeries’ line is that a day of discussion produced an offer worth voting on. None of those sentences discloses the number on the paper.

If members accept, the 24 September strike is the walkout that never happened, and the first public pay test of Hovis Bakeries ends in a quiet count. If they reject it, the indefinite action Unite had already scheduled is the obvious next step, and the Belfast extras become the published benchmark again. Until that vote is counted, bread is moving and the two-tier question inside ABF’s new bakery unit is only on hold.