Kraft Foods is “considering options” for Cadbury’s Somerdale factory in the UK, a site the US food giant had said it hoped to keep open before buying the Dairy Milk maker.
Cadbury had planned to close the Somerdale site and move production to Poland in a bid to cut costs.
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However, prior to Kraft’s GBP11.7bn (US$18.3bn) takeover of the UK confectioner, the Toblerone maker said that it hoped to keep Somerdale open, if its bid was successful.
“As well as investing in Bournville, we want to keep the Somerdale plant open, which Cadbury plan to close,” Kraft said in December.
According to reports, Kraft is now mulling the full closure of the site as well as considering the possibility of keeping the site open with a skeleton staff. Some 400 workers are employed at the facility.
Lay-offs are expected to begin as early as next month.
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By GlobalDataA spokesperson for Kraft said that the company was “consulting with Cadbury management” to determine the company’s “best option” for Somerdale.
Responding to the news, a spokesperson for Unite, the union representing Cadbury workers, accused Kraft of “irresponsibly” raising worker’s hopes at Somerdale.
“We are concerned that this will prove the first in a series of job cuts as Kraft moves production overseas to cut costs,” the spokesperson warned.
Kraft president and CEO Irene Rosenfeld admitted for the first time last week that the takeover will result in redundancies in the UK.
Addressing Cadbury employees on a conference call, the Kraft boss insisted the acquisition of Cadbury was “about growth” and said the aim of the integration was to allow the combined business “to grow faster”.
“We are starting with this as our premise [but] we believe clearly in certain areas there will be some redundancies and we will have to deal with them over time,” Rosenfeld said.
