FDBusiness.com

Mondelez International is to close its chewing gum ingredient factory in Tallaght, County Dublin, and to restructure its Cadbury chocolate manufacturing plants located in Coolock, Dublin and Rathmore in County Kerry, resulting in the loss of more than 200 jobs.

At its gum-base production plant in Tallaght, the company has announced proposals to employees and their representative unions, to close the facility in early 2016.

These proposals follow an in-depth review which looked at a range of factors including the cost of production at Tallaght, which is at least twice as expensive as other similar plants.  Global demand for gum is declining and the development of a new, superior technology for the production of end-to-end gum products supersedes the current technology in Tallaght.

Unfortunately these proposals would necessitate the loss of the 45 permanent roles and 17 contracted roles at the plant in Tallaght. The company will now begin a consultation process with employees and their representatives on the proposals.

The proposals for the two other sites include a €11.7 million investment in new chocolate making technology to enable Coolock to concentrate production on core chocolate brands – Cadbury Dairy Milk 8-square, Flake, Twirl and Boost, for consumption in Ireland and the export market. From the end of 2015 the Coolock plant will no longer produce wafer brands Time Out and Pink Snack, sales of which have been in decline for a number of years. These proposals, and a wider efficiency programme in both Coolock and Rathmore, would result in the loss of approximately 160 roles across both sites.

Justin Cook, managing director of Mondelez Ireland, comments: “Our proposals to restructure our chocolate business aim to build a stronger business in Ireland. Cadbury is the only large scale chocolate brand manufactured in Ireland. We are proud to support Irish farmers by buying approximately 70 million litres of milk every year and of our heritage as the home of Ireland’s best-selling chocolate bar, the Cadbury Dairy Milk 8-square, as well as Flake, Twirl and Boost.”

Phil Hodges, senior vice president Integrated Supply Chain for Mondelēz International, says: “Our chocolate production costs in Ireland are currently more than twice that of Mondelez factories in other locations, and we have to become competitive if we are to strengthen for the future. Our gum ingredient factory in Tallaght faces too many production cost challenges to be sustainable and, following the development of new, superior technology which is only suited for co location with a finished gum plant, regrettably we see no alternative to the proposal to close this plant.”