The information about the plant closures was published in the Official Gazette, which is the only way the public found out about what Lactalis has been doing in Romania in the last few years.
Lactalis officials had not provided any comment by the time the story was ready for posting. They also did not say whether they relocated butter and yellow cheese production to another plant in Romania or to a center in Poland or Croatia. They neither say how many employees were affected in the process.
While closing plants in traditional milk processing areas in Romania, Lactalis is spending hundreds of millions worldwide to tap into new markets. This week alone it paid more than EUR250 million for a producer in India, according to Reuters.
Lactalis had previously closed the Cottage cheese production facility in the town of Dorna Arini, Suceava County (northern Romania), in 2011 and moved the equipment to Poland.
“Much to my dismay, I see that a number of successful investments of the 2000s are now choosing to shed jobs and concentrate production instead of developing and continuing the investments on a market that will grow in the coming years. Romanians are starting to eat and drink yogurt and milk as much as the Europeans do and the market also has export potential,” said Valeriu Steriu, deputy and member of the Agriculture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies.
He did not comment further on LaDorna, since he worked for the group before its founder, Jean Valvis, sold it to Lactalis.
Lactalis now owns a facility that makes cheese in Constanta County and a UHT milk facility in Vatra Dornei (north of the country). The group last year announced it would rebrand the LaDorna cheese made in Constanta to President, without saying why.
The latest official data from Lactalis, which it released in early 2011, showed LaDorna was the number one UHT milk brand in Romania and the company was also one of the top three white cheese varieties.
The cheese (white and yellow cheese) market in Romania is estimated at EUR300 million and dominated by multinationals: Hochland, Bongrain (Delaco) and Friesland. Other competitors include Covalact, Albalact and Lactalis, as well as private labels of major retail chains.
Dorna Lactate, the largest company in the LaDorna group, posted more than EUR40 million revenue in 2012 and net profit of EUR5 million, according to Finance Ministry data, but the number of employees was 230 people lower than in 2008.
Romania has only eight major dairy plants (with more than 250 employees) left compared with 14 at the end of 2008 and only around 500 companies still operating in the business, most of which employing less than ten people.
Lactalis is not the only one to have closed production facilities in Romania. FrieslandCampina did, too, when it decided to close the cheese specialty factory in Taga, Cluj County, last year. The biggest exit in the Romanian dairy business in the last five years was Israeli-owned Tnuva’s, which in 2012 closed the plant in Popesti-Leordeni near Bucharest, later acquired by Turkey’s Sutas.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)