NORTH AMERICA – Nestle USA, a division of Swiss food giant Nestle, and Canadian consumer packaged meat company Marple Leaf have announced plans to close down some of their facilities in North America.
Nestle USA said it will close its Sweet Earth Foods facility located in Moss Landing, California, a move that is expected to affect 140 employees.
The company said it will shift production of the Sweet Earth products which include frozen meals, burritos, breakfast sandwiches to its facility in Solon, Ohio.
“This move will help optimize production and utilization across our meals manufacturing network, as well as streamline delivery to our customers,” Nestle said.
“Sweet Earth remains an important part of our foods portfolio as we continue to provide consumers with delicious food choices to meet their needs.”
Earlier, Nestlé USA said it plans to build a US$675 million factory in Glendale to make creamers, including those based on oat milk, for Coffee mate, Starbucks and other brands.
The facility is estimated to bring 350 jobs including engineers, manufacturing personnel and more in two years.
Nestlé has also recently announced that it has suspended capital investment and pulled all advertising activity in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.
But the Ski yogurt and KitKat chocolate maker has however noted that it will continue to sell “essential” food products in Russia.
Marple Leaf Schomberg facility to close in 2023
Across borders in Canada, meat packaging company Maple Leaf Foods Inc. is planning to close a poultry processing facility in Schomberg, Ontario.
Operations at the facility are expected to move to a newer plant in London, Ontario which is currently under construction and is expected to be ready by late 2022.
Once the transition is completed, poultry processing at another plant in Bradford will also be transferred to the London plant, allowing it to focus on value-added production.
Maple Leaf said it would identify opportunities within the company at other plants for workers affected by the closing of the Schomberg facility.
“Pursuing these optimization opportunities is part of Maple Leaf Foods’ ongoing strategy of building its strong, competitive and efficient poultry value chain, leveraging best-in-class technologies, processes and ingenuity to deliver nutritious food,” the company said.
Maple Leaf purchased the Schomberg facility as part of its acquisition of Cericola Farms in 2018. The Bradford plant also was included in that deal.
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