Danone Aims to Ensure Continued Existence of Bledina Baby Food Plant in Brive.

9 November 2009 - With a view to enhance the competiteveness of its Bledina factory in Brive-la-Gaillarde, Danone is in the process of reorganising and improving production efficiency at the site. The move comes several months after the firm announced a 22 million euro investment in a second Bledichef production line at the plant.

The company is anticipating further investments to reconfigure its production lines to further improve productivity at the plant, which not only produces the Bledichef range, but also other key products including Bledi'Fruit, Les idees de Maman, Les Petits Grands and Petit pot. A staff reduction initiative, however, has been undertaken by the site's management.

Bledina Communications Director Marilise Marcantonio told FLEXNEWS that the company proposed early retirement for 78 volunteers over the next 3 years and stressed that no job cuts will be made under the current initiative, which is seeking to ensure the continued existence of the plant.

Marcantonio added that the site's management will be meeting staff again at the end of the month or in early December to provide them with more details.

According to the trade union FGA-CFDT, the Brive-la-Gaillarde plant is far more expensive to operate than the company's other production sites in Opole in Poland and Deva in the Czech Republic. It is understood that the cost to manufacture a ton of products in those plants comes up to half of the cost recorded in Brive. FGA-CFDT also argues that Bledina products made in France are more elaborated than in the Eastern European factories.