French dairy cooperative Sodiaal has revealed plans to close its site in Malestroit, France, as part of a new ‘industrial master plan’.
The plan involves a transfer of production from the Malestroit site to its facility in Montauban-de-Bretagne, slated for 2028/2029 and leading to the eventual closure of the Malestroit plant.
A spokesperson for the company confirmed to FoodBev that staff representatives were made aware of the plan, which aims to ‘maintain the competitiveness’ of Sodiaal’s Emmental cheese business, in January 2025.
“Sodiaal wanted to be transparent and present this project well in advance, as part of its strategic orientations, in order to be able to anticipate the impacts on employment and to have the time necessary to support each employee concerned individually, in maintaining their employability,” the spokesperson told FoodBev.
They emphasised that Sodiaal’s milk collection in Brittany would not be impacted, and that the company would like a forward-looking employment management system to be built “in a responsible manner” as part of negotiations with the Entremont Alliance trade unions.
The relocations of Malestroit’s activities, other than the cheese factory, would only be implemented once the site’s production has been transferred – expected to take around three to four years to complete, the spokesperson confirmed.
According to Sodiaal, the plan responds to a strategic challenge for the cooperative’s cheese business – increased competition in the Emmental market has seen pressure on prices from distribution channels gradually intensify in recent years, the spokesperson noted, with 2024 seeing the arrival of some Emmental private label brands of EU origin.
“To maintain competitive industrial cost prices and remain accessible to the greatest number of consumers, in order to preserve its volumes and its positions on the market and maintain the value of the milk collected, particularly in Brittany – a region in which 50% of the milk collected is transformed into Emmental – Sodiaal has no choice but to optimise its industrial facilities,” the spokesperson stated.
“In Brittany, the Malestroit site produces 15,000 tonnes of Emmental, the cost of which is two to three times higher than the average for other sites in the region. Indeed, the site cannot be operated at 100% of its capacity without making investments of various kinds to sustain production volumes.”
They added that the structural investments to be made, estimated at between €50 million and €70 million, would “not significantly improve the level of industrial performance”.
“In Montauban-de-Bretagne, the investments to be made to produce the 15,000 tonnes currently manufactured in Malestroit have been estimated at 30 million.”
The spokesperson concluded that to ensure the operation of the Malestroit cheese facility until the end of the transfer of production and its closure, Sodiaal will continue its planned investments into the site in the coming weeks.
Over the last five years, €10 million has been invested in the site, and €4-5 million of investment is planned for the next three years, including €2.3 million in 2025.
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