Silk Milk Maker Closing Plant, Cutting 114 South Jersey Jobs

A South Jersey facility making plant-based dairy products has decided to close its Bridgeton operations this summer, and approximately 114 workers will be laid off.

Danone is closing its local plant-based dairy facility, where it makes  Silk milk alternative, and moving the work to other company facilities in Dallas, Mt. Crawford, Virginia, and Jacksonville, Florida.

Danone's Products

Danone's New Jersey facility in Bridgeton has been making plant-based beverages and creamers for its Silk and So Delicious brands, including soy, almond, oat, and cashew-based products, for the past 25 years.

At its other 13 plants around the U.S., the company produces dairy-free alternatives, coffee creamers, iced coffees, and bottled water.

Danone -- or Dannon for its American markets -- is best known to me for its line of yogurts, including Oikos, Activia, Light + Fit, Dannon, YoCrunch, and Danimals for kids.

Plant-Based Milk Products Have Lost Customers

While sales of the yogurt products are doing well for the company, the plant-based items are struggling for the company, according to FoodDive.com.

Plant-based has been a rare blemish recently at Danone, which reported approximately $7.9 billion in sales in its first quarter. In February, Juergen Esser, Danone’s CFO, called out “unsatisfactory performance” at the company’s plant-based and coffee creamers business.

Industry-wide,  plant-based sales have declined by nearly one-fifth since 2021, with the steepest annual decline occurring last year.

South Jersey Workers Lose Jobs

First reported by the Philadelphia Business Journal, Danone filed a worker adjustment and retraining notification (WARN) with New Jersey, informing the state that 114 jobs will be eliminated at the plant between August and November.

Under the WARN Act, employers are required to provide 60 days’ notice before mass layoffs or plant closures affecting 50 or more employees, to give workers time to seek alternative employment or retraining opportunities.

Danone opened the 185,000 sqare-foot Bridgeton plant in 2001. The company claimed it was the first soy protein extraction facility in the US and its first site to achieve ‘zero waste to landfill’ status.