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Nestlé has announced plans to close its manufacturing facility in Solon, Ohio, by the end of 2027, shifting production lines to its facility in Gaffney, South Carolina, as part of an ongoing supply chain consolidation drive across North America.
The phased closure impacts the manufacturing plant responsible for producing Nestlé Professional Solutions pouches, which supply prepared frozen foods, sauces, and culinary components to commercial foodservice operators, hospitals, educational institutions, hotels, and convenience stores.
Nestlé confirmed that while manufacturing operations at the site will wind down gradually over the next 14 months, the broader Solon campus will remain fully operational. The campus will continue to serve as a major corporate operating centre and house the company's dedicated chilled and frozen foods Research & Development (R&D) facility.
Shifting Production to South Carolina
Under the network consolidation programme, pouch manufacturing will transition to Nestlé's processing complex in Gaffney, South Carolina:
Capital Investment in Gaffney: The South Carolina facility has received extensive capital allocation in recent years to expand automated processing capabilities, including a $100 million expansion in 2021 followed by an additional $150 million investment in late 2024.
Phased Transition Timeline: Production lines at Solon will transfer in stages, with complete operational decommissioning of the factory targeted between the third quarter and the end of 2027.
Workforce Impact: Nestlé has not disclosed the precise number of production roles affected by the closure. The decision follows a previous operational restructuring at the Solon plant in early 2024, which resulted in 216 redundancies when the site employed roughly 780 personnel.
"The decision to close the Solon facility is part of our effort to best serve consumers and optimise our network," a Nestlé USA spokesperson stated.
"Nestlé has a long-standing presence in Ohio, with nearly 3,000 employees across seven facilities statewide, including manufacturing operations, R&D, corporate functions, and the broader Solon campus. We will continue to maintain a strong presence in the state as we focus on serving customers and consumers now and into the future."
Preserving Solon R&D and Corporate Operations
The closure marks the end of food manufacturing at the historic Solon site, which previously produced consumer frozen meal lines under the Stouffer's brand before volume began shifting to newer facilities across the group's network.
However, Nestlé emphasised that the broader Solon complex remains an integral component of its global product development infrastructure:
Dedicated R&D Facility: Opened in 2015 following a $50 million investment, the 144,000-square-foot Solon R&D Centre of Excellence will continue to lead formulation, packaging development, and culinary prototyping for Nestlé's North American frozen and chilled food portfolio.
Commercial Functions: Administrative, corporate, category management, and commercial support teams based on the Solon campus remain unaffected by the factory closure.
North American Footprint and Supply Chain Realignment
The factory closure arrives as major consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers review fixed asset footprints across the United States to align industrial capacity with shifting post-inflationary volume baselines.
Over recent quarterly trading updates, Nestlé executive leadership noted that execution in North America required improvement amid category volume softness in consumer frozen foods. Consolidating specialised product formats, such as foodservice pouches, into high-throughput, modernised facilities like Gaffney allows the manufacturer to optimise overheads, streamline inventory logistics, and lower cost-per-unit metrics.
The move mirrors broader capacity adjustments across the North American food processing sector, where rising operational expenditure, shifting dining channel demands, and supply chain automation have led peer conglomerates to shutter older, less flexible municipal production facilities in favour of integrated, highly automated regional production hubs.
