The closure plan will be announced on June 13 during an extraordinary Social and Economic Committee (CSE), and concerns 109 employees.
More than 170 years after its creation, the Poulain factory located in Villebarou, near Blois (Loir-et-Cher), is targeted by a closure plan which will be announced on June 13 during a social and economic committee (CSE ) extraordinary, we learned on Friday from a union Source and from management. Summoned on Wednesday by their management, the unions learned during this meeting the upcoming CSE agenda, namely “the closure of the Blois site”indicated Tony Anjoran, union delegate of the CGT within Poulain, confirming information from La Nouvelle République.
This announcement took the 109 employees of the factory by surprise, according to the unionist, who affirms that “volumes have been declining for a year, but not enough to endanger the company”. “No efforts made to find an industrial solution likely to sustain the activity of the site” did not succeed, explained for its part the management, for which the CSE of June 13 “will make it possible to share information with a view to consulting staff representative bodies on the economic reasons for this project, its impacts, support for employees and the search for buyers”.
“We have it in our throats, because they could also have waited a few months and chosen to sell the site”lamented Tony Anjoran, before declaring “disgusted” to see it close “a company with more than a century of history”. From now on, for the CGT, the objective is to: “negotiate the exit conditions as best as possible from a social point of view” for employees of the company founded in 1848 by Victor-Auguste Poulain. For its part, management ensured its “determination to support each of the 109 employees concerned towards a new job”who will be “at the heart of the project” presented on June 13. Since 2017, the Poulain chocolate brand has been owned by the Carambar & Co group, created after the acquisition by the investment company Eurazeo of several French confectionery brands from the American multinational Mondelez.
