While directors at Nanjing Automobile might have been pleased with the deal they struck in buying Rover's Longbridge car plant, they are clearly not impressed with the fare on sale at the staff canteen.
Saddened by the state of the sandwiches and unimpressed by the anglicised Chinese restaurants in the area the new Chinese owners have flown in its own team of cooks to re-open the canteen.
A member of the Chinese advance team said they had been deeply disappointed by British food and didn't consider sandwiches to be proper food. They also did not find local Chinese restaurants to their taste, the Financial Times reported.
Former workers at the Longbridge plant in Birmingham are unsure whether the latest move is good or bad news for their future employment.
The company is expected to pack up most of the Rover equipment and set it up near its headquarters in eastern China, where it will be able to produce the same cars at a fraction of the labour costs.
What is not clear is how much of a serious manufacturing presence will remain in what was one of the centres of car making in Britain for most of the 20th century, from the Austin 7 through the Mini and the Allegro and Metro, as well as being the industrial base for Red Robbo, the leftwing union official Derek Robinson in the late 1970s.
Nanjing has played its cards close to its chest so far. It does not own the Rover name, which had already been sold by the Phoenix consortium, led by John Towers, before it ceased production earlier this year.
Unions locally say they have been told the company hopes to restart production of specialist sports cars branded as MG, but negotiations are still in progress.
Nanjing Automobile has teamed up with one of the failed bidders for Rover's MG TF sports car business in plans to restart production at Longbridge.
It had said that its combined research and manufacturing facilities would eventually employ up to 2,000 people, producing between 80,000 and 120,000 cars a year. There is little market for sports cars in China.
The state-owned Chinese group's partner in the venture is the GB Sports Car Company, one of the failed bidders for the Rover business.
