A page in the history of Breton working-class history (147 years) turns this Friday, December 20. The very last French Saupiquet factory, one of the leaders in fish canning, which still employed 153 employees this year in the Moulin-Vert district of Quimper (Finistère) is closing its doors.
The activity of the factory, opened in 1968 and which had up to 300 employees in the past, has seen its activity relocated to Spain and Morocco. The announcement, which is not a surprise, was made in June of this year by the owner of the brand since 1999, the Italian Bolton Food. Founded in Nantes in 1877, Saupiquet was very widely established in Brittany between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
According to Les Echos, sales in France of Saupiquet brand sardines and mackerel had fallen by 25% in the space of four years, leading to a loss of around five million euros in France. “All of our canned fish production sites are facing significant production overcapacity,” Bolton Food explained in a press release, specifying that “Quimper had one of the lowest utilization rates in the group. (The management therefore had) no other choice than to concentrate its industrial resources to regain competitiveness. »
A “satisfactory” social plan
At the beginning of the 1900s, the Saupiquet group had 24 canneries and gradually experienced strong growth until the end of the 1990s (more than 2,000 employees worked for the group). The vast majority of employees at the Quimper factory, which would soon have celebrated its 60th anniversary, are leaving their workplace “with a heavy heart”, as the unions recall (and in particular the CFDT, the majority, which recently declared to be “satisfied with the job protection plan”) and “will therefore remain in Finistère”. The employment pool in the region should be able to find them a similar position.
