Permanent closure of three plants, construction of a new packing site and expansion of stretched cheese manufacturing operations. These are the three drivers of the US reorganization of Saputo Inc, the Canadian dairy giant in the hands of the family that owns the Bologna soccer team.

The company will spend C$240 million, or more than €166 million, on a new cutting and packing plant in Franklin, Wisconsin, which is expected to create 600 jobs: the plant is expected to be fully operational by the third quarter of this year. fiscal year 2025.

Once the new factory is operational, Saputo will move existing packaging operations from other manufacturing sites to the new Franklin facility, permanently closing the sites in Big Stone, South Dakota and Green Bay, Wisconsin.

The company will also invest C$75 million, or more than €51.8 million, to convert its Tulare, California, slitting and wrapping plant into a cheese packing facility, according to an official statement. pasta filata. According to forecasts, the plant will be fully operational by the third quarter of the fiscal year 2025: an investment, underlines the company, intended to "support the growth ambitions and the leadership position in the stringy cheese category". Again, with the opening of the new plant, the South Gate, California plant will be permanently closed in the fourth quarter of 2025.

The closure of the three plants will impact approximately 720 employees, who will be given the option to relocate to other Saputo plants. If not, they will be provided with "redundancy pay and redeployment support," the company said.

"Continuing to lay the foundations for future growth in the United States - explains Lino A. Saputo, president and chief executive officer of the group -. These initiatives aim to consolidate our ability to meet current and future customer demand and to further improve our cost structure".

"The strategic investments - continues Saputo -, the simplification of the footprint and the optimization of the structures will lay the foundations for a significant improvement in our operational performance, thanks to the consolidation of the activities in world-class structures".

"These initiatives -concludes the manager-, also aimed at increasing production capacities in some of our higher value-added product categories, will fuel our aspirations to further improve our value proposition as a high-quality, low-cost converter. cost in the United States".