Danone to Lay Off 114 Employees After Shutting Plant-Based Dairy Factory
Danone is closing its plant-based dairy facility in New Jersey, which made products for its Silk and So Delicious brands, laying off 114 employees amid a slowdown in its non-dairy business.
Despite dominating in Europe, Danone’s alternative dairy portfolio in North America has been struggling.
The French dairy giant has now announced that it will shutter its factory in Bridgeton, New Jersey, where it manufactured plant-based milk and creamers for its Silk and So Delicious Dairy-Free brands.
First reported by the Philadelphia Business Journal, Danone filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN), informing the state that the move will see 114 jobs eliminated from the 25-year-old facility between August and November.
“This change is part of a broader effort to transform our network and enables our investment in critical capabilities across our core US footprint for the long term,” Danone said in a statement to Just Food.
Danone to transfer production to other US facilities
Danone had opened the New Jersey plant in 2001. Spanning 185,000 sq ft, the company claims this was the first soy protein extraction facility in the US, as well as its first site to achieve ‘zero waste to landfill’ status.
It produced soy, oat and almond milks for the Silk brand, as well as oat milk and dairy-free creamers for So Delicious, representing two of the largest names in the US dairy alternative space.
The decision to issue the WARN notice, however, came months after Danone’s CFO and deputy CEO, Juergen Esser, stated that its plant-based business in North America had an “unsatisfactory performance” in 2025.
Under the WARN Act, employers are required to provide 60 days’ notice before mass layoffs or plant closures affecting 50 or more employees, which is designed to give workers time to seek alternative employment or retraining opportunities.
Following the closure, Danone will transfer the facility’s production for Silk and So Delicious to three of its facilities in Mt. Crawford, Virginia; Dallas, Texas; and Jacksonville, Florida.
Plant-based still a key focus for Danone
The announcement comes amid the wider struggles of the plant-based milk category in the US. According to SPINS data crunched by the Good Food Institute, retail sales of non-dairy milk fell by 2% to $2.7B in 2025, despite remaining the largest segment within the plant-based sector.
But formats like soy and coconut milk enjoyed a good 2025, with sales up by 4% and 27%. And outside milk, other non-dairy products registered growth, including creamers (+2%) and yoghurts (+7%)
The underwhelming performance of Silk and So Delicious in the US, however, contrasts with Danone’s exploits in the dairy-free category in Europe. Here, its Alpro brand posted growth in the high single digits, according to Guillaume Millet, the European VP of plant-based food for Danone.
In an interview with Green Queen, he revealed that Alpro captures 54% of the vegan yoghurt market in Europe, whose sales expanded by double digits and make up 40% of the brand’s overall revenue.
Back in North America, even as Danone conducts mass layoffs and consolidates production of its non-dairy products, its bet on the plant-based market remains steadfast. This is particularly true for the ready-to-drink beverage segment (which saw a 12% uptick in sales last year), where it has acquired plant-based nutrition brands Kate Farms and Huel.
Meanwhile, the company doubled down on the high-protein wave with the launch of Silk Protein, a two-strong range of soy milks with 13g of complete protein per serving, significantly higher than dairy.