The restructuring of Quorn Foods’ plant-based operations in the UK will result in unquantified job losses but no factory closures, owner Monde Nissin has confirmed.
Philippines-based Monde Nissin told Just Food that the precise number of job cuts would “only be determined as we progress through the business transformation programme being led by new CEO David Flochel”.
Former Heineken, Mars and Unilever executive Flochel was named as the successor to Marco Bertacca in October. While he has already joined Quorn Foods, he will not officially take up the CEO role until January.
Within a matter of weeks of that announcement, Monde Nissin revealed further “softness” in demand for its plant-based meats that has plagued its 2023 and 2024 financial results. The nine-month figures issued earlier in November were accompanied by a restructuring exercise to “streamline costs and simplify operations”.
Forbes reported this week, based on an interview with Monde Nissin’s CFO Jesse Teo, that the company ‘will retrench hundreds of Quorn’s workforce as it shuts plants and streamlines its supply chain’.
While the Philippines head office acknowledged that UK jobs would be lost, it did not comment on the actual numbers ahead of Flochel beginning his tenure as CEO. However, the company denied any of Quorn Foods’ factories were earmarked for closure.
“Mr Teo did not state that plants will be closed and operations will continue at all three of Quorn Foods’ manufacturing sites,” Monde Nissin informed Just Food when questioned on the plans.
Monde Nissin did confirm, however, that the addition of a fifth fermenter at Quorn Foods’ Billingham site in County Durham, north-east England, would no longer go ahead.
The “work was paused in 2023 when anticipated volume growth was not realised”, Monde Nissin confirmed.
A spokesperson for Quorn Foods’ clarified the other two manufacturing facilities are located in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, and Methwold, Norfolk, situated in the north and east of England, respectively.
Monde Nissin told Just Food that Quorn Foods had over invested in “both personnel and manufacturing capacity in expectation that the meat-free category would experience significant growth”.
Presenting the nine-month results in November, Monde Nissin CEO Henry Soesanto said Quorn Foods is aiming for annual cost savings of £8m ($10m) under the restructuring exercise in 2024 and 2025, and beyond.
EBITDA for plant-based alternatives is also expected to turn “positive” in the 2025 financial year.
“We believe these actions will put the business on a stronger footing and better set up for future success,” Soesanto said.
The meat-alternatives division, or Quorn Foods, posted an EBITDA loss of 137 million pesos ($2.3m) in the first nine months of 2024, compared to a 94m peso loss a year earlier.
Sales were down 2.1% at 10.1bn pesos, while net losses after tax narrowed to 655m pesos from 759m pesos.
