Australian dairy group National Foods has announced plans to close its Wetherill Park and Cobden sites and transfer production to its Morwell and Baulkham Hills facilities.

The consolidation, announced today (29 June), will result in around 280 job losses.

National Foods said it will spend A$65.5m (US$56.1m) in upgrading its Morwell and Baulkham Hills sites, while phasing out production and eventually closing the sites at Wetherill Park and Cobden.

Changes are expected to take effect progressively until March 2012, the firm said.

The decision follows an extensive review of National Foods’ dairy operations after its acquisition of the Dairy Farmers business in November 2008. Following the review, the company said it was not sustainable to have four sites producing fresh and longer-life dairy foods varieties.

The Cobden site, where long-life flavoured milk is manufactured, is scheduled to close in December this year.

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The Wetherill Park site, which specialises in yogurt manufacture, is expected to close in March 2012.

National Foods operations director, Arthur Murphy said: “Any decision that results in job losses is taken extremely seriously. Today’s announcement is about ensuring we remain a sustainable and viable operator in the dairy foods market today and in the future.

“When we take into consideration the duplication in our manufacturing operations, Fonterra taking back production of its own Ski yogurt currently being made in Wetherill Park, the environmental impacts and costs of running four sites and the reduced demand for products manufactured at Cobden, the review identified that four sites were not viable in the long-term,” he added.

National Foods said it will consider redeployment opportunities along with relocation assistance where appropriate.

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