It is a major employer in the Manceau basin: 380 people work for the Yoplait plant in Le Mans, one of the group’s three French sites. A group which returns to the French fold since the cooperative Sodiaal finalized the takeover of Yoplait on Monday, November 29. A homecoming explains Jean-Pierre Faucon, the regional director of Sodiaal: “Yoplait was created by our parents, milk producers and dairy farmers in this area, Sarthe and Mayenne, in 1965. “The cooperative negotiated with the American group General Mills to regain control of the Yoplait subsidiaries.
What will be the impact for Sarthe employees? “There will be no social impact on the Le Mans site. _It is extremely important to reassure the 380 employees_. Sodiaal is a dairy cooperative that is attached to its territory and therefore, obviously, everything will be done to pursue the conditions they had beforehand. They have not been modified“. The cooperative explains that this takeover is part of a strategy of seeking valuation:”When we are in France, it is more difficult to fight against countries which do not have the same social or even environmental conditions as us. We can only stand out with products of the highest quality“explains Jean-Pierre Faucon.
This takeover could result in an increase in the remuneration of breeders, “That will be the whole issue, our cooperative model is thus made. The value that we will create, we will redistribute it“assures the regional director of Sodiaal while adding:” _We will discuss with our members to find out how we still need to improve Yoplait_, but it is sure that this will go through the quality, and by the French origin, which speaks to the consumer.“Today, the Yoplait site in Le Mans is supplied with milk by 200 farms, all located in Sarthe, Mayenne and Maine-et-Loire.