The management of Zwanenberg Food Group is planning to move the activities of its snack production facility in Boekel (The Netherlands) to the UK. The transfer is connected with the sharp fall of the Pound Sterling and deteriorating market conditions which have resulted from this decline.

Zwanenberg wants to start the transfer at the end of 2009. Consequently the factory in Boekel will be closed down in the first quarter of 2010. Dutch trade unions have been informed about the plans; Zwanenberg’s Works Council has been consulted and will advise on the matter in several weeks.

The Zwanenberg production unit in Boekel produces snacks (including satay in bulk packaging, multivac, snacks under the Taste Original brand name as well as private label), for the British market. “As a result of the sharp decline of the Pound Sterling we are experiencing difficulties to supply at competing prices`, explains Zwanenberg´s CEO Ronald Lotgerink. “Moreover, from a cost and logistics viewpoint it is more logical to make these products where they are actually consumed, namely in the UK. We own two plants there, in Corby and Minsterley.”

Employment

The Boekel plant will be closed down in the first quarter of 2010. Lotgerink: “Although employment opportunities within Zwanenberg are extremely limited in the current economic situation, we will do our utmost to reinstate our 106 Boekel colleagues as much as possible, wherever there are vacancies. Concrete arrangements will have to be made in the social plan.”

For more information please contact:

Patrick de Leede, info@catchoftheday.nl; tel. 00 31 6 21 54 69 95