Sara Lee-owned food company Bimbo will shut an industrial bakery factory in Segovia (outside Madrid) and dismiss 120 workers in the process, a workers’ committee official confirmed to just-food.
Angry trades unions plan to schedule “prolonged strikes if the company pursues the plan”, he noted. Bimbo intends to reduce staff throughout its Spanish subsidiary, the union official added. The company is also working to outsource some of its logistics operations starting April 2006.
Bimbo could not immediately be reached for comment.
Unions plan to ask management to sit with them to study a plan that will maintain the factory and the workers’ jobs, the official said, adding that a meeting should take place in coming days.
Bimbo has a dominant position in Spain’s bakery market where its sliced-bread brands are very popular. It competes head to head with rival Panrico which private equity group Apaxurope recently acquired for €900m (US$1.08bn).
