Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
The food group Nestlé has announced the definitive closure of the Buitoni factory in Caudry (Nord), which employs 140 people, citing a drop in sales. The factory was implicated in the contaminated pizza scandal. The case dates back to February 2022, when the health authorities were alerted to an upsurge in cases of kidney failure in children, linked to E. coli contamination. Production was halted on 18 March 2022, then the public authorities banned all activity on the site, as the health authorities had established a link between the consumption of pizzas and several serious cases of contamination, including two deaths of children. The factory partially resumed its activity in mid-December 2022, after a nine-month shutdown.
The management indicates that no redundancies will be notified before 31 December 2023. Nestlé is committed to launching 'a process to find a solid and sustainable takeover solution for the factory', as required by law, and to offering the 140 employees 'an internal redeployment opportunity'. Given the closure, the effects on employment will be immediate with the non-replacement of natural departures. The exact number of job losses will depend on the eventual takeover of the site, whose production facilities are not expected to interest many buyers, and on the acceptance by the employees of possible redeployment proposals within the group.
Update 13/11/2023: Nestlé, which had decided to halt production there for good, has entered into exclusive negotiations with Italpizza, Italy's leading frozen pizza group. By the end of 2023, Italpizza, which has sales of €380 million, has committed to hiring 40 employees, rising this number to 70 by 2025. The installation of a second production line for wood-fired pizzas in 2027 should increase the workforce to 140 by then.
Eurofound (2023), Buitoni, Closure in France, factsheet number 108757, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/108757.
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