In eight years, the cumulative losses of Matines amount to 114 million euros and they have worsened since 2021.
The company Matines, owned by the French number one in eggs Avril, announced Thursday a “scheduled stoppage of activities», the packaging and marketing of eggs, if no buyer appears by the fall.
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“The company has decided to commit to a planned shutdown of its activities, as part of a voluntary approach, presented today to staff representatives and employeessaid Matins in a statement. The deadline “it’s fall 2022“: “if the closure project is validated by the administration and if there is still no buyer by then, it is closure“, 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 avenues for individual takeovers“, he added.
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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 isstrongly correlated with the disappearance of the main market in Matines 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” at “a majority of alternative eggs(organic, under label), according to the company. In eight years, the cumulative losses of Matines amount to 114 million euros and they have “worsened since 2021: eggs cost more to produce, the price of raw materials is higher and we have failed to pass on these increases“, clarified Christophe Le Bars.
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