‘Bombshell’ for workers as Cadbury’s set to cut 222 jobs

Trade union officials are seeking urgent meetings with Cadbury’s parent company, Mondelez, after it yesterday announced it would be cutting 222 jobs from across three of its plants in Dublin and Kerry.

Siptu representatives said the news that Mondelez Ireland would be closing its Tallaght factory and seeking 160 redundancies from its facilities in Coolock, Dublin, and Rathmore, Co Kerry, came as a “bombshell”.

“The announcement that the company is seeking such large-scale redundancies has come as a complete shock to the workforces and their communities,” Siptu organiser Colm Casserly said.

The company yesterday cited production costs as the reason behind closing the Tallaght factory, which produced chewing gum ingredients and employed 45 permanent and 17 contracted staff.

Mondelez Ireland said it would be investing €11.7m in new chocolate-making technology, but that this, and a wider efficiency programme in both Coolock and Rathmore, would result in the loss of about 160 roles across both sites.

“Our chocolate production costs in Ireland are currently more than twice that of Mondelez factories in other locations, and we have to become competitive if we are to strengthen for the future,” said Phil Hodges, senior vice president integrated supply chain for Mondel¯ez International.

“Our gum ingredient factory in Tallaght faces too many production cost challenges to be sustainable and, following the development of new, superior technology which is only suited for co- location with a finished gum plant, regrettably we see no alternative to the proposal to close this plant.”

Mondelez Ireland said the investment in Coolock would see the plant focus on producing the Cadbury Dairy Milk eight-square, Flake, Twirl, and Boost brands for consumption in Ireland and the export market.

From the end of the year this factory will no longer produce wafer brands Time Out and Pink Snack.

A spokesman for Mondelez Ireland said that the Pink Snack would be discontinued, but that no decision has been made on the Time Out brand. He said Cadbury’s wafer brands would be produced in Poland in future.

Mr Casserly said that Siptu would seek to to minimise the number of redundancies in Coolock and Rathmore to the greatest degree possible.

“Employees at both plants have given sterling service to the company over the years,” he said.

“The bombshell of this announcement when coupled with the news that production is being transferred from the Coolock facility to Poland has turned shock to anger.”