Cloetta to Close Three Swedish Factories
Following its merger with Leaf coupled with overcapacity in its production operations, Cloetta has decided to close its factories a tGavle, Aura and Alingsas in Sweden, as well as streamline its warehouse network. The closures will result in 345 redundancies. Production will be transferred to other group factories, chiefly to Levice in Slovakia and Ljungsbro in Sweden, as Cloetta continues to further improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Cloetta plans to close the factories in Aura and Alingsas in early 2013 and in Gavle in early 2014. In addition, the warehouses inMalmo in Sweden and Slagelse in Denmark are planned to be outsourced and consolidated into a new warehouse in southern Sweden.
“The merger between Cloetta and Leaf allows an even more cost efficient production and distribution structure. In addition, we have overcapacity in our production which makes it necessary to reduce the number of factories,” explains Bengt Baron, president and chief executive of Cloetta.
The changes will incur a cost of SKr320 million to SKr 370 million and generate annual savings of approximately SKr100 million (Eur11 million). Founded in 1862, Cloetta is a leading confectionary company in the Nordic region, the Netherlands, and Italy. In total, Cloetta products are sold in more than 50 countries worldwide.
