20 November 2008 - Amora announces its intention to consolidate its industrial activities near Dijon, by concentrating its production on the Chevigny-Saint-Sauveur site.
€10 million would be invested to make Chevigny-Saint- Sauveur a European reference site for the production of mayonnaise, mustard, vinegars and condiments. The creation of a new national logistics centre would consolidate Unilever France’s ambient food products in the region.
Dijon, November 20th, 2008. During today’s meeting of the Central Work Council, Amora-Maille introduced a reorganisation project to concentrate its activities in Burgundy. This project responds to the company’s need to simplify its industrial activities, in order to regain competitiveness. Since 2003, the French market in mustard has decreased by -5%, mayonnaise by -9%, pickles by -12% and dressings by -16%. During that period, the sales of Amora-Maille products have particularly suffered, losing 20% to Distributor Own Brands and Hard Discounters who have seen their sales rise by 23% between 2001 and 2007.
“In an extremely difficult market, Amora-Maille is currently not competitive. Overcapacity and an industrial organisation scattered across 3 sites coupled with the complexity of our portfolio, with high production costs, means we have to take significant steps to simplify our organisation and portfolio. In Dijon for instance, we make six families of products, 67 recipes and more than 212 SKUs. Today, it is vital to compete efficiently with the distributor’s own brands and the hard discounters”, Hervé Laureau, the president of Amora-Maille, explained.
The industrial activities would be concentrated in Chevigny (6 miles from Dijon), which would see the closing of the Dijon and Appoigny plants. €10 million would be invested in Chevigny, as well as an additional €16 million dedicated to moving production lines. In addition to the 135 existing positions, the Chevigny site would add 57 new jobs; 52 in production and 5 in R&D – from Dijon and Appoigny.
The Dijon site has always been very complex to run because of its location in town, limiting expansion.
Since 2002, its production has decreased by -42% (from 91 000t in 2002 to 55 000t in 2008). Some activities from the Dijon site, like the production of the Dijon mayonnaise (15 000t), would be moved to Chevigny. The Appoigny site (Yonne) which concerns mainly the production of pickles (13 000 t), cannot be sustained with the current low capacity utilisation (21%).
As part of this announcement, an R&D centre would be created in Chevigny dedicated to mustards, vinegars, and pickles which requires specific expertise for the French market. Since already more than 60% of the innovations are developed for the European market (vs 20% 3 years ago), and to answer the increasing need for differentiating technology to be competitive, the European R&D activities would be transferred towards the R&D centre of Unilever in the Netherlands.
To gain efficiency and coherence as well as boost the sales of Amora-Maille in France and of Hellmann’s and Calvé in Europe, the marketing teams located between Dijon, Rueil-Malmaison and Crawley (UK), would be grouped at the Unilever France headquarters, in Rueil-Malmaison.
Finally, Unilever France is projecting the creation of a new national logistic centre for its ambient food activities with a capacity of 100,000 pallets. Located in Fauverney, (10 miles from Dijon), the centre would be operated by FM Logistic, a leading French players in industrial logistics. This reorganisation of stock and distribution activities would create of 250-300 jobs at the new location, among which 150 would be set aside for Amora-Maille employees.
The total number of Amora-Maille positions impacted would be 265. We would compensate as much as possible by reassigning and transferring positions within Burgundy. To keep local jobs, Amora-Maille would also commit to seek an industrial partner interested in the Appoigny site. For the employees who wouldn’t benefit from those measures, assistance in job-finding program would be discussed with personnel representatives.
To pursue the presentation of this project, Unions Representatives will soon be invited to another work council meeting.