French chicken company throws in the towel

After months of struggling and an earlier threat to close the business, the French chicken producer Tilly-Sabco has finally decided to file for insolvency at the trade court or ‘tribunal de commerce’ in Brest.

The court will decide in a few days’ time what further procedure to follow. During the session on Tuesday afternoon, over 100 of Tilly-Sabco employees held a peaceful demonstration at the court house.

The managing director of the company has appealed to the court to give him maximum time to continue the activities in order to save as many of the 326 jobs as possible. The financial collapse might also mean the end for at least some of the 80 poultry producers in this part of Brittany who work exclusively for Tilly-Sabco.

Tilly-Sabco, based in Guerlesquin in the so-called Finistère region, has suffered huge financial losses since the European Commission decided last summer to finally stop subsidising the export of frozen chicken to non-EU countries. Earlier, another company in Brittany, Groupe Doux, closed a number of premises and laid off over 800 employees for the same reason. Groupe Doux could be partly rescued thanks to the help of a large Saudi-Arabian customer but that does not seem to be the case for its competitor Tilly-Sabco.