Swiss food and drink company Nestlé has announced it is 'reorganising' its operations in Sub-Saharan Africa, due to costs in the Equatorial Africa Region.
Its Central West Africa Region (CWAR) will become a 'key market' for the group, effective 1 August of this year.
Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which were part of its Equatorial Africa Region (EAR), will now be part of CWAR.
'These changes will ensure our Sub-Saharan Africa business continues on a healthy growth path, delivering affordable nutrition to as wide a population as possible,' the company said in a statement.
Redistributing Operations
Its current Southern African Region (ZAR) will be expanded to enclose the Horn of Africa, Southern, Eastern, and Island areas of EAR. The new enlarged region, which will have headquarters in Johannesburg, will become the Eastern and Southern African Region, or ESAR.
The EAR head office will close at the end of July, with tasks redistributed between the head offices of the other two regions (Johannesburg and Accra in Ghana).
The company commented that, 'Our team in EAR has done a tremendous job, but after trying for nearly ten years we can no longer sustain the cost of the regional head office with the size of the business there.'
Minimisation Of Impact
The reorganisation will not affect current staff in country or cluster offices, or consumers, trade and wholesale partners, suppliers, or customers across the EAR region, Nestlé said.
'We understand this is unsettling for those employees affected. We will strive to minimise the impact of the changes, holding consultations with them to achieve this,' the company commented.
'We are very grateful for their contribution to the growth of our business in Sub-Saharan Africa and will do our utmost to give them strong support through this process,' the statement added.
Recently, the Nestlé group has implemented other initiatives meant to streamline its operations, such as axing 500 IT jobs in Switzerland and combining its scientific research operations into a single unit.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Karen Henderson. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
