Solon Mayor Eddy Kraus called Nestlé’s plan to close its manufacturing factory in Solon by the end of 2027 “disappointing” as the food and beverage company prepares to move operations to South Carolina.

“Obviously, it’s not the news we love to hear,” Kraus told the Cleveland Jewish News on Oct. 19, the same day employees and the city of Solon learned of the decision from Nestlé. “The bright spot is we will continue to have a large Nestlé footprint with their corporate and research and development operations, all of the food testing they do, staying here. Most of the jobs will stay, but certainly it’s disappointing that about 370 positions will be eliminated from the manufacturing side.”

Nestlé, which is globally headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, and whose USA operations is headquartered in Arlington, Va., confirmed the closure of the facility at 5750 Harper Road to the CJN on Oct. 19, and it said the move of manufacturing operations to Gaffney, S.C. is part of its “effort to best serve consumers and optimize our network.”

“We are supporting impacted Solon factory employees through comprehensive separation and transition support, including collaboration with state and local partners,” a Nestlé USA spokesperson told the CJN in an emailed statement. “Impacted employees will also be eligible to apply for open roles at other Nestlé locations, including in Ohio. 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.”

Nestlé plans to end production during the third quarter of 2027 with the transition getting underway in the next few months. The factory, which opened in 2014, is expected to be fully closed by the end of 2027.

The closure will not impact the other parts of Nestlé’s Solon campus, which includes research and development operations, corporate functions, a thrift store and multiple business units.

The closure will eliminate the 370 positions in Solon, Kraus said, with roles including production workers and assembly line operators; ingredient handlers and machine operators; quality control and sanitation staff; and food production specialists.

According to the city of Solon as of 2025, Nestlé is the second largest employer in the city with 2,314, behind Swagelok with 3,179. Kraus and Nestlé did not provide the exact number of workers at the time of the announcement, but Kraus said the closure would put the number below the 2,000-mark, which would still keep Nestlé’ as the second-largest employer in Solon. Nvent Erico/Pentair /ERICO International Corp. is third with 850.

Workers may move to assume their positions at the factory in South Carolina, Kraus said, but for those who don’t, the mayor told the employees that “we can look to place them with our companies here.”

“Some of them will stay with Nestlé locally, while others may look to other places,” he said. “We have a lot of industry here in Solon, so I told them that we’ll help backfill some of the jobs at our other companies.”

Nestlé’s Streetsboro Distribution Center will be unaffected, as will its manufacturing factory in Cleveland on West 25th Street.

At its Solon factory, Nestlé produces professional solutions pouches, where it seals bases, flavor concentrates, sauces, soups, gravies, coffee and juice concentrates, entrees, like mac and cheese, and other ingredients in sealed bags that are used for mass meal production at larger commercial foodservice operators such as restaurants, schools and hospitals.

Nestlé’s presence in Solon is a result of its acquisition of Stouffer’s, which produces frozen prepared foods such as lasagna and meatloaf. It was founded by Abraham Stouffer in downtown Cleveland in 1922, and it moved its headquarters and manufacturing to Solon in 1968. In 1973, Stouffer’s was acquired by Nestlé, which opened a corporate building in the city in 1989. Stouffer’s has kept its original name and operates on the Nestlé campus in Solon, according to previous CJN reporting.

In 2001, Nestlé established its first regional research and development operation in Solon with a focus on frozen foods. In 2008, the Nestlé Professional Customer Innovation Campus, a culinary research and development facility, opened on the 60-acre campus. In 2015, a $53 million project concluded that created the opening of a 144,000-square-foot research and development facility in Solon, where workers develop and test products.

In 2017, the campus grew even further when the company moved its headquarters from California to Virginia and brought over its technical and production organization and all of its supply chain teams to Solon, according to Nestlé.

In January 2024, Nestlé announced it would lay off 216 employees from the now-closing facility, saying at the time that it wanted to “continue to deliver quality products to consumers at competitive prices.”

Kraus said he didn’t know the exact impact that the closure will have on the tax revenue the city receives from the plant, but said while the city will miss that income, the impact economically will not be too big.

“We’ve got a couple companies on the horizon here in Solon,” Kraus said. “FedPro, Inc., a chemical manufacturing company, is moving here and they’ll bring several million dollars in payroll. We’re looking at other ways to grow the economy, and we understand it ebbs and flows. Sometimes you gain, sometimes you lose. Our economy here is pretty diverse, we have about 900 businesses, so we can absorb a loss of 370 jobs. But you want to have a plan to make sure those jobs are replaced, whether it be by Nestlé or other companies.”

And Kraus said he is hopeful that Nestlé will bring more jobs to Solon’s campus through its other divisions and said that the city and the company are still “great partners.”

“Most of their operations are staying,” he said. “We understand from a business standpoint that you have to sometimes eliminate jobs. We get that. But they’re a tremendous partner, and we will continue to work with them and grow with them.”