the Quimper factory closes, Saupiquet will no longer produce mackerel in France

Established in Quimper for more than a century, the Saupiquet cannery produced its last cans of mackerel and sardines this Friday. The 152 employees are laid off.

The Saupiquet cannery in Quimper, which employed 152 people, produced this Friday the last cans of the brand manufactured in France, after more than a century of presence in the prefecture of Finistère, announced the Italian group Bolton.

“That's it, it's finished: we have taken out the last boxes,” Valérie Bonder, CFDT union representative at the factory, told AFP.

“The production ended at 2 p.m. We all stayed together for two hours in the workshop, when nothing was being filmed. It was really moving, sad, there were a lot of tears,” described the trade unionist.

Sales down “by almost 25%” in France

Established in Quimper since 1901, the cannery, which manufactured cans of mackerel and sardines, was the last Saupiquet factory in France. The 152 employees will receive their dismissal notice “at the beginning of January”, the Bolton group, owner of the factory, told AFP.

“People were really very attached to their factory. There is a lot of bitterness regarding the choice of our bosses to close the factory,” added Valérie Bonder, who specified that the departure conditions granted to the employees were “ correct.”

Some of the employees must return at the beginning of January to empty the factory, whose machines will go to Spain or Morocco, according to the unionist. In June, Bolton justified the closure of the factory due to “the decline in the market for canned fish in France and Europe” which leads, according to the group, to “significant production overcapacity” in Europe.

Bolton Food's sales volume fell “by almost 25% between 2020 and 2023” in France, according to the group, which says it has recorded 5 million euros in losses in 2023 on the market for food products and brands. Founded in Nantes in 1891 by Arsène Saupiquet, the Saupiquet company had around ten sites in France in the 1980s. The company was bought at the end of 1999 by the Italian group Bolton.