Up to seven jobs are at risk at Innovia Films after it announced a restructure.

The business, which employs more than 600 people at its Wigton HQ, makes polypropylene film including the specialist Guardian banknote material, where it is the world leader.

Earlier this month it completed the sale of its cellulose film division to the Japanese firm Futamura, splitting the Wigton site in two.

Futamura has taken on 270 staff, most of whom transferred from Innovia, including employees in sales, accounting and customer services.

Joe Piccione, Innovia's managing director, said the sale provided the company with an "ideal opportunity to re-evaluate our organisational structure in line with our strategy".

He added: "Separating a business that has grown over 80 plus years is a challenge in itself.

"Achieving that in such a short time frame is commendable to all those involved in that process.

"We are exceptionally pleased with the outcome of this process for our cellulose film employees and customers.”

Mr Piccione said that the company had made "adjustments" to its middle management as a result of the new focus.

He continued: "This change will come into effect over the next few months and could result in a small number of redundancies.

"It is expected this could affect up to seven people. We are working closely with them to offer alternative roles within the organisation.

"It is worth mentioning that this year we have also recruited an additional 15 operators to man our production lines.

"Sales and volume from the Wigton plant are due to grow this year, especially with the launch of the new £5 note [for the Bank of England] and the continued development of our unique BOPP [biaxially oriented polypropylene films] for the packaging, labels and tobacco markets."

He is confident of the company's future and pointed out that specialty films make up 80 per cent of the business' sales.

“We are experts in tailoring films to our customers’ requirements whether that is barrier, thickness, printability, shrink tightening, squeezability or fast sealing films for optimised performance.

"Moving forward, we are well invested and will therefore be looking closely at how we can build upon our manufacturing capabilities and in maximizing our R&D and technical expertise.

"This will be done to continuously deliver new and exciting product solutions to our existing and new customers."