Workers at a closure-threatened fish factory are to draw up an action plan to save their jobs.
Staff at Young’s Seafood will hold an emergency meeting on the future of the Fraserburgh factory at the weekend.
The loss of a major contract to supply Sainsbury’s with salmon has left as many as 900 people facing redundancy.
Young’s has already started consulting with staff on its proposals to close the Fraserburgh plant, which it says will be left “under-utilised”.
But it has also said one option being considered is selling the factory to another fish processor.
And workers hope Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Government and Aberdeenshire Council will help produce a blueprint for keeping the Watermill Road site operational.
Last night, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers’ representative at the plant confirmed plans for an emergency meeting of workers on Saturday.
Alex Moonan said: “There’s also an all-management meeting taking place on Thursday, but I don’t know if we’ll be invited into that.
“We just want to find out what the company actually wants and what Scottish Enterprise can offer to secure jobs or the site.
“They (Young’s) have not said what they want yet, or what will be safeguarded, so we’re having to wait and see what gets put on the table from them and what they’re able to do for us.
“We have to wait for answers, really.”
Young’s Fraserburgh operation employs 500 staff and 400 agency workers.
The chairman of the town’s community council, Ronnie McNab, has warned that losing such a large number of skilled jobs would leave the port “devastated”.
A notice circulated to the workforce has suggested production is “likely” to continue at Watermill Road into early 2016.
As recently as February, Young’s revealed a planned multimillion-pound investment in the plant and tabled proposals for a new freezing centre.
Mr Moonan said: “The mood in the factory has slightly improved because there’s hopefully not going to be any redundancies until January.
“But that’s not to say that agency workers wouldn’t be let go. They wouldn’t count as a redundancy, it would just be a pay-off, as such.
“There is talk of whitefish lines moving, but they (Young’s) haven’t told us that yet. One product has been on the cards to move for six or seven weeks, before talk of the closure, but since then there’s been no word.”
The Young’s workers will meet in Fraserburgh’s Leisure Centre on Saturday.
A spokeswoman for the company said that before news of the loss of the Sainsbury’s fresh and smoked salmon processing contracts, a small number of products were already in the process of transferring to Annan-based Pinneys, which is part of the Young’s group.
She added: “This started before the current developments. The products in question represent a very small percentage of Fraserburgh production.”
A spokesman Banffshire and Buchan Coast MSP Stewart Stevenson said the politician would be attending Saturday’s meeting.
He said: “Stewart is looking forward to discussing with the unionised members how we keep as many jobs as possible in Fraserburgh.”
Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Government and Aberdeenshire Council have already offered help and training to get any staff made redundant back into work.