169 jobs to go at Arla as Llandyrnog and others are closed

Arla has announced that 169 jobs are under consultation in the UK as part of its 3 year calcium transformation programme.

Today’s announcement will see Arla’s Llandyrnog Creamery close impacting on 97 staff, its Malpas cheese packing site close impacting on 43 jobs, closure of its Lockerbie cheese packing facility impacting on 14 jobs plus a further 15 roles at its Leeds HQ.

The total anticipated redundancy comes to 169 and the work from all three facilities will be redistributed to Arlas other premises. A further 180 job cuts are understood to have been announced in mainland Europe.

The Llandyrnog factory has undoubtedly been severely affected by Arla’s loss of the Sainsburys cheese business, estimated to be somewhere between 13 to 14,000 tonnes year, which must have been the final nail in the coffin for a factory operating at below 50% capacity.

So whilst Arla is or perhaps was one of the UK’s largest cheese producers as well as the worlds 5th largest dairy processor it is certainly finding life tough and indeed downsizing at the same time as two of its main GB competitors are making major investments to increase production.

Last week Dairy Crest announced a £75 million investment in its Davidstow Creamery to boost factory output by 23,000 tonnes. In addition, Wyke Farms have just announced the building of a new dairy which will see its existing 18,000 tonnes increased by almost 3 fold to 50,000 tonnes once its various phases are completed.

Challenging times for Arla both in the UK and globally and today’s announcement is expected to be the first of several.