Nestlé has sold its infant formula plant in Askeaton, Co Limerick, to US pharmaceuticals group Pfanstiehl.
The Swiss food giant closed the Wyeth Nutritionals plant in March, after a two-year wind-down period that saw the loss of 542 jobs on the site. Nestlé blamed falling demand for imported infant formula in China for the decision.
Nestlé said it had been actively working to identify a new owner for the site that could sustain its long-standing manufacturing heritage. The agreement with Pfanstiehl, it said, represented a successful outcome of the process and would see manufacturing continue on site.
No details of the price paid by Pfanstiehl have been disclosed.
Pfanstiehl, founded in 1919 in Illinois, is a privately held business specialising in the development and manufacture of products for the pharmaceutical and biosimilars sector.
The company only established a corporate presence in Ireland in January, registering Pfanstiehl Ireland Limited with the Companies Registration Office.
A spokesman for the new owner said there were no details available yet on its detailed plans for the Limerick site, the scale of its proposed investment, when it will start operations and how many people it is likely to employ.
Pfanstiehl’s website says its manufacturing operations are sited exclusively in the United States so the Askeaton facility is likely to be its first foreign manufacturing base.
However, it will take time – likely a number of years – to convert the infant formula plant into a pharmaceuticals manufacturing site cleared by the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration.
Pfanstiehl says it is a global leader in the supply of “high purity injectable excipients”, inactive ingredients added to injectable medicines to enhance the stability, safety and solubility, as well as “components for the global biopharmaceutical and life science industries”.
It works with pharma industry leaders in the areas of protein/antibody drugs, vaccines and cell and gene therapy.
Nestlé, one of the three big global players in infant formula manufacture, originally acquired the Limerick plant as part of its $11.85 billion purchase of Pfizer Nutrition back in 2012. It first opened back in 1974.
All of the factory’s output was exported, mainly to markets in China and elsewhere in Asia.
It added a research and development unit to the site in 2019 but that was also relocated as part of the plant’s closure.
The business had close links to the wider community and the decision to shut down operations saw Limerick City and County Council lose close to €490,000 a year in commercial rates.