The Board of Directors of Orkla Foods Norge decided to carry out an orderly winding-up of the operations in Lierne.
Lefse production will be moved to Stranda. The move cannot be made until a year from now at the earliest.
The decision was made at a Board meeting at Orkla Foods Norge (OFN) today. The decision entails that OFN will now move its unprofitable production of lefse from Lierne to concentrate on profitable production at Stranda, which offers greater opportunities for innovation and future growth.
"For our employees at Lierne, this is naturally an extremely serious message to receive and for that reason we have considered it important to take the necessary time to conduct this process in a thorough manner," says Atle Vidar Nagel-Johansen, Chair of the Board of Orkla Foods Norge.
"Our decision has been made on the basis of sound, well-considered grounds. Moving production to Stranda is clearly the best alternative based on all the decision-making criteria," says Nagel-Johansen.
The management of OFN will now spend time with the elected employee representatives to find good solutions so that the employees know what to expect. Examples of solutions include training courses, counselling and severance pay.
From October to January Orkla Foods Norge made thorough efforts to explore possible means of maintaining the operations at the Lierne branch. In addition, union representatives worked with employee representatives from January to March 2014 on preparing a proposal that has been discussed regularly with the local management and presented to the management of Orkla Foods Norge.
