Biscuits and crackers maker Pladis is set to close a US manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania.
The site in Mohnton is slated for closure on 29 May, with 55 workers likely to lose their jobs, according to a Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor.
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No other details were provided in the filing. Just Food asked Pladis for comment on the reasons behind the decision to shutter the factory, what products are manufactured at the site and the total number of staff.
Pladis responded by saying the Mohnton closure “enables us to focus our resources” on the company’s other US plants – the Godiva chocolate factory in Reading, Pennsylvania, and a site in Big Flats, New York.
It said in a statement: “Our Mohnton plant currently directly employs 60 people, who we will treat with the utmost care and support during this transition, including severance based on tenure and the offer of outplacement services.
“While this business decision helps facilitate our growth strategy, it is a tough time for our teams.”
Flipz pretzels maker Pladis, which is owned by Turkish conglomerate Yildiz Holding, also has manufacturing facilities across Europe and the Middle East, along with single sites in India and Kazakhstan, according to the company’s website.
It emerged last week that Pladis has been left without a CEO after Salman Amin “left” the business for personal reasons.
A brief statement quoting a Pladis spokesperson on 25 February read: “We can confirm Sridhar Ramamurthy, chief financial officer, and Tim Brett, managing director Europe and developing markets, have assumed temporary oversight of Pladis.”
Amin was appointed CEO in early 2019. Before joining Pladis, he was the global chief operating officer at US conglomerate SC Johnson & Son, which specialises in household cleaning products. Prior to that, Amin was PepsiCo’s chief marketing officer.
At Pladis, Amin was accountable for all the categories and geographies of the company, including Europe, the US and the Far East.
Pladis has products across the sweet and savoury biscuits, wafer, cake and chocolate categories. It also owns the brands Carr’s and Go Ahead.
The company has a 16,000-strong global workforce spanning 27 bakeries across 11 countries, according to its website, including the Mohnton facility.
In September, Pladis revealed plans for expansion in the Middle East, North Africa and India via the opening of a new regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia.
