Warsteiner owner Haus Cramer Group is cutting jobs at the brewer’s headquarters as part of moves to protect its “long-term competitiveness”.
The move will eliminate approximately 125 full-time roles at the Warstein site in western Germany.
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The cuts follow the company’s decision earlier this year to potentially close two breweries.
Haus Cramer expects roughly 50 of the roles at Warstein to be phased out through employee retirements and the expiry of contracts.
The business expects 600 staff to remain at the site. It has entered talks with worker representatives over the remaining redundancies.
Announcing the decision yesterday (23 September), the Warsteiner pilsner maker said the cuts form part of a broader drive to deliver a “significant” reduction in operating expenses.
In May, Haus Cramer said brewing at its site in the town of Herford will end during the second half of the year.
The company has also put its brewery 50km south in Paderborn up for sale. Haus Cramer said if no buyer is found for the Paderborn facility production there will also stop by the end of this year.
Haus Cramer plans to push on with some capital expenditure projects, including the construction of a de-alcoholisation plant this year
A relaunch of the Warsteiner brand is also due to roll out before the end of the year.
During an internal staff address in Warstein, Bodo-Joachim Wendenburg, the CEO and chief restructuring officer who took charge in July, attributed the decisions to the broader downturn in the industry.
“Given the decline in sales volumes across the industry over the last ten years, these additional cost-cutting measures are unavoidable,” Wendenburg said.
Last year, national beer sales in Germany were 18.9% lower than in 2015, representing a reduction of 1.8 billion litres, according to data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).
Destatis figures released in August also showed the number of breweries in Germany fell more than 3% last year to 1,415.
Established in 1753, the family-owned Haus Cramer Group oversees a portfolio that includes Frankenheim, König Ludwig, and Rye River alongside its flagship Warsteiner brand.
