German milk firm Muller has closed its dairy in Aberdeen, with the loss of 73 jobs.

A total of 60 people were made redundant on Friday and another 13 have left the plant in recent weeks.

More than 200 jobs are expected to be lost as a result of Muller's decision to close milk dairies in Aberdeen and Lanarkshire.

The East Kilbride plant will remain open for up to two years while Muller invests £15m in its plant at Bellshill.

Farming union NFU Scotland said the closure of the Aberdeen dairy could threaten farming in the north east.

Muller has offered to keep buying milk from the 43 farmers who supply its Aberdeen dairy if they pay to transport it to Bellshill. The 1.75p a litre charge could cost farmers over £26,000 a year.

Some 16 drivers will stay on at the depot in Aberdeen to ferry milk to the central belt.

A spokeswoman for Muller said: "Following the consultation decision announcement, we aimed to close our dairy at Aberdeen as soon as was reasonably possible in June.

"The last production runs will take place today before we move to a decommissioning process. The closure has resulted in 60 redundancies."