The announcement of the closure of Danone in Salas entails a new economic, social and emotional setback for the southwestern region, which has undergone the reconversion and closure of coal mining, has seen the closure of the thermal activity in Tineo with the withdrawal of Naturgy and the closure of the Soto de la Barca power plant, and has suffered some roadblocks due to landslides that have temporarily hindered its connectivity with the central area of the community.
The Government of Asturias yesterday expressed its “astonishment” at Danone’s decision, “a divestment”, it said, “that affects a company in the dairy sector, which has been favored by the health pandemic” already a factory that “has been established for 41 years” in Salas.
The Asturian executive, who was made aware of Danone’s plan “at the same time as the workers’ representatives”, will try, he said, to “reverse” the decision, with the aim of maintaining industrial activity and employment”.
The municipal government team described the news as a “hammer blow” for the council. “Danone is a flagship for Salas, and even more so when it is a dairy industry in a livestock municipality”said Alexander Bermudez, Councilor for Local Development and Population. “It is not only direct employment, but indirect employment due to all the daily movement generated by the factory,” he added. “From the City Council we are going to fight to try to find a solution.” Bermúdez criticized the closure when the highway has already reached Cornellana (Salas), fifteen kilometers from the factory, and is in the process of being completed to the capital. Mayor, Sergio Hidalgoremained all afternoon meeting with the Principality to combine strategies.
Maria Baldpresident of the FADE employers association, expressed, “from respect for business decisions”, the hope that “there is capacity to reverse the decision and avoid the closure of such an important company for such a punished area”.
Carlos Paniceres, president of the Oviedo Chamber of Commerce, to which the municipality of Salas belongs, regretted the decision and offered to the City Council and the Principality to “help in the search for a solution” that would allow the decision to be reversed and, if not, , propose alternatives that allow the continuity of the manufacturing activity in the hands of another investor. “It is a business decision, which seems to be related to production costs and the product itself that is made in the factory. The cost of energy doesn’t seem to have helped,” he said. Paniceres underlined the impact of the closure in the region” and demanded that “one more industry in the Southwest not be lost.”
Ignatius Fuster, general secretary of CSI in Asturias, the majority union at the plant, expressed his support for the workforce in “the fight to maintain the industrial fabric of Asturias” and reproached the regional government “for they only have good words but never do anything”. The works council, in the expression of its secretary (CSI), will defend the continuity of the factory and pointed out the relevance of the factory as the “only industry” of the council, and the great impact that its closure would have on the economy of the municipality.
The factory that made the Petit Suisse for several generations of Spanish children
Danone established itself in Asturias more than half a century after its founder, Isaac Carasso, a Sephardic Jew, began in Barcelona in 1919 the artisanal production of yogurt for sale in pharmacies. When it arrived in Asturias at the end of the 1970s, the French subsidiary had merged ten years earlier (in 1967) with the Gervais cheese factory, and this alliance ended up gobbling up the Spanish parent company. Danone then became a French company. In 1977 Danone established a distribution warehouse in Siero, but the origin of the factory was in Cornellana (Salas). In 1979, the group bought the milk supply network that Clesa had in Asturias and its collection center in Cornellana. It was the first step to start the manufacture of fresh cheese. The factory was located in the town of Salas, the capital of the municipality, and production began in 1981. Several generations of Spanish children were fed with the Petit Suisse (now Danonino) that the Salense plant has manufactured since then.