Heineken to close the Tornio brewery …
Dutch brewer Heineken, which acquired Finland’s Hartwall business through its takeover of Scottish & Newcastle last year, cited the current market environment with increased price competition, rising alcohol taxation, declining consumption, and increased personal imports as reasons behind its plans to close the Tornio brewery.
The company added it would launch a statutory cooperation procedure process affecting all 100 workers of the Tornio brewery, with a further 30 job cuts in Finnish sales operations.
No other job losses are involved. The negotiations process will be completed by the end of November.
Managing Director of Hartwall, Jan-Kees Nieman, was reported as saying: “This has been a very difficult decision for Hartwall. The Tornio brewery has a long and proud history. However, retaining two breweries is cost and efficiency wise no longer an option and therefore, the planned loss of jobs is unfortunately unavoidable.”
Hartwall, which employs around 1,000 people, said that 20 new jobs will be created at the Lahti site which will firstly be offered to leaving staff.
According to plan, the Tornio brewery will be closed in September 2010. From then on, all of Hartwall’s production will be concentrated in the Lahti site. The spring water bottling plant remains in Karijoki.
Hartwall opened its Lahti state-of-the-art production and logistics centre in 2003. Unlike Tornio, which marks the border between Finland and Sweden at the northern tip of the Bothnian Arc and has a population of 22,000 people only, Lahti is centrally located in the south of Finland, where the majority of Finns live.
According to Euromonitor, a market research outfit, three companies control Finland’s market for alcoholic beverages: Sinebrychoff, Hartwall and Olvi. Sinebrychoff (owned by Carlsberg) leads the Finnish market for alcoholic drinks, a result of its strong position in beer products, particularly beer and cider, where it is a market leader. Hartwall comes a relatively close second, due greatly to its strong position in RTDs, where it is the leader. Hartwall’s market share has declined in recent years, mainly as a result of falling beer sales, but also due to intense competition from market leader Sinebrychoff as well as smaller players such as private label producers.
