H.J. Heinz, the US foods company, plans to cut as many as 4,000 jobs from its worldwide workforce of 40,000 over the next four years as part of a wide-ranging restructuring.
It plans to sell off its under-performing Weight Watchers classroom division, close or sell between 15 and 20 factories and shake up its manufacturing and distribution system.
Heinz said it expected the restructuring to produce annual cost savings of more than $200 million (€178 million) from 2002, while triggering a pre-tax restructuring charge of about $900 million.
The restructuring, code-named Operation Excel, will mainly affect operations in Europe. Speaking yesterday to analysts in Naples, Florida, Mr William Johnson, Heinz president and chief executive, said the company's European management team had proposed the closure or sale or one-third of its 21 factories in Europe.
Heinz employs more than 400 people at a manufacturing operation in Dundalk, Co Louth, where the company makes frozen ready meals and pizzas. It also employs a further 100 people in its distribution operation for Ireland, supplying goods made mainly in Britain. While there was no comment from a spokesman last night, it is understood that the Irish operations will not be affected by the restructuring.
Although Heinz is planning to sell off Weight Watchers International, which offers dieting classes, it will keep Weight Watchers brand frozen foods.
Mr Johnson said the decision to sell Weight Watchers, which has annual sales of about $400 million, reflected "the different skills required to manage a retail business, which are not synergistic with our core competencies".
He also disclosed plans to change the company's manufacturing and distribution structure from a decentralised collection of "unaligned autonomous affiliates" to one managed according to global product categories.
