The Matines company, owned by the French number one in eggs Avril, announced on Thursday a "
scheduled stoppage of its activities
", the packaging and marketing of eggs, if no buyer appears by the fall.
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“
The company has decided to embark on a planned shutdown of its activities, as part of a voluntary approach, presented today to staff representatives and employees
,” Matines said in a press release.
The deadline “
is autumn 2022
”: “
if the closure project is validated by the administration and if there is still no buyer by then, it is closure
”, has explained to AFP Christophe Le Bars, general manager of Avril solutions for agriculture.
"
After looking for a buyer for the company as a whole for a year, for two months we have been exploring individual takeover tracks
," he added.
A restriction on the rearing of hens in cages at the end of 2021
Matines has three packaging centers, a storage site and two administrative establishments for a total of 172 employees.
Two individual takeover projects are planned: one for a packaging center in Naizin in Morbihan, which employs 48 people, and the other for a storage site in Côtes-d'Armor with six employees.
While in 2014, when the Avril group took over Matines, 1.6 billion eggs were marketed, 900 million are today.
This drop in volume is “
strongly correlated with the disappearance of the main Matines market with eggs from caged hens
“explained the general manager.
At the end of 2021, the government restricted the breeding of hens in cages (prohibition on building a new building or refurbishing to increase its capacity), after having prohibited any new installation in 2018.
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Matines had gone since 2014 from “
more than 80% eggs from caged laying hens
” to “
a majority of alternative eggs
” (organic, under label), according to the company.
In eight years, Matines' cumulative losses amount to 114 million euros and they have "
worsened since 2021: eggs are more expensive to produce, the price of raw materials is higher and we have not succeeded to pass on these increases
,” explained Christophe Le Bars.
