The unsustainability of energy bills begins to push companies in the agri-food sector to stop production and layoffs, in order to contain costs. After the Callipo tuna, which last week announced the decision to resort to a weekly day off, now it is the turn of the Valcolatte di Piacenza dairy, 340 employees in all, which will stop the production of ricotta and mozzarella one day a week, on Wednesdays, four times a month. The news was reported by the newspaper Libertà.
The decision was made after receiving the electricity bill in July, which a year ago amounted to 175 thousand euros and last month jumped to 609 thousand. To reduce the impact of energy costs, therefore, the company has decided to stop production for a day: on Wednesday, therefore, only the shipping office, administration, milk reception and maintenance will remain active. For the first two weeks off, employees will use two days of vacation, but the third will trigger the layoff. The owner of Valcolatte then points the finger at the bureaucracy, which would keep his practice for the construction of a biogas plant blocked from 2018: if the work had been built five years ago, says the entrepreneur, today the dairy could have been to be almost independent from an energetic point of view.