The sugar company in Spain. The entity has reported this week of a reorganization that will mean the direct closure of its facilities in La Bañeza (León), dating from the thirty years of the last century and is the last vestige of this industry in a province with great tradition in beet cultivation. In fact, it was the territory where more hectares of irrigation were grown with this vegetable in 2024. The total amounts to 251, more than half of them in the Leon plant.
The company, a subsidiary of the great British group Associated British Foods, has blamed the measure to the decrease in sweet consumption, the increase in production prices and the lowering prices derived from exports from Ukraine due to the advantageous conditions agreed with the European Union. Azucarera contemplates concentrating the production in Toro (Zamora), Miranda de Ebro (Burgos) and Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz).
In a statement distributed to the media, the company’s CEO, Juan Luis Rivero ,. “The decision to concentrate all grinding in a single center is the only way to guarantee our sustainability and the future. We have taken it after a deep analysis of all possible scenarios,” says the Executive. This sees the position of the company “justified by the confluence of multiple structural variables.” Among these are the costs of maintaining three active factories (La Bañeza, Miranda de Ebro and Toro), the “sugar price volatility, intensified by imports from third countries in conditions of greater advantage [en referencia a Ucrania]”And” the fall of beet productions due to the prohibition of the use of active substances. ”
Rivero appealed to “improve” efficiency “and, in general, the operation of the factory, thus guaranteeing the sustainability of the company.” The ERE, “justified by economic, productive and organizational causes”, affects “251 employees of all the company’s productive centers, including the offices of Madrid and Barcelona.”
The company, hereinafter, will produce sugar in Jerez de la Frontera, Toro and Miranda de Ebro. The two packaging centers in Jerez and Benavente (Zamora) will also be maintained. The farmer Javier Prieto, from fights below (Zamora), states that in the sector the sugar cargo was intuited: “They came to manage a company from Madrid, when the field is different,” he says. In fact, he says that many farmers in the area entered the Acor cooperative, also dedicated to sugar production.
The guild charged two years ago, in full galloping inflation, beet at 75 euros per ton. Today they receive 55. “It is a minimum price that we cannot lower,” says Prieto, who points out that after those “two very good years”, they are now times of “uncertain future for a key sector in Castilla y León.” Acor celebrated the elections of the Cooperative on Tuesday and its re -elected president, Jesús Posadas, admitted the concern. “We are concerned about the information that comes from sugar,” he said, but added that “Acor’s situation is very different” and expects “a normal campaign.”
The announcement of the ERE has motivated the complaints of unions and sectoral associations. The Aceja Agrarian collective has renegated the decision, of which it accuses “unique responsible: and the nefarious political and industrial political ones that have led in recent years.”
The jug of cold water that has fallen on the bath has also stirred the waters of politics. The PP, under Castilla y León, has taken advantage of the ERE to point to the central government. The regional president, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, has urged the company to reconsider the cut and has alluded to the regulations to reduce the consumption of sugar, such as the increase in taxes in sweetened drinks: “When he spoke badly as the government of [Pedro] Sánchez, then these things happen, ”he said. Castilla y León, however, also recommends in their health portals reduce the consumption of sugar. And the socialists have attacked Mañueco for being“ more pending of the government ”than of their community.
The head of the UGT union industry, Sandra Vega, criticizes that “for a month” the sugar blow was neighboring. “The board of directors passed the ball without being aware of the loss of employment,” denounces the trade unionist. The dismissals amount to 251 in total, of which 193 are concentrated in Castilla y León: 50 in Miranda de Ebro, 26 in Toro, one in Benavente and 116 in La Bañeza. “This community cannot allow more unemployment,” says Vega, who fears that the British company will end up closing its plants “like the many sugar closures of the last 50 years in Spain.”
