Nestlé to Close Solon Factory by End of 2027 While Keeping Research and Corporate Campus
Published: Oct 20, 2026 - 11:13 a.m.
SOLON, Ohio — Nestlé plans to close its Solon factory by the end of 2027, moving production to South Carolina and ending nearly six decades of manufacturing at a site tied to one of Northeast Ohio's best-known food businesses. The company's broader Solon campus, including its research and corporate operations, will remain open. Employees learned of the decision Monday, Oct. 19. Nestlé will gradually transfer production of frozen meal pouches for its Nestlé Professional Solutions food-service business to its existing factory in Gaffney, South Carolina. Production in Solon is expected to conclude by the third quarter of 2027, followed by the factory's closure in the final quarter of the year. The announcement concerns the manufacturing operation, with the company confirming that its Streetsboro distribution center and West 25th Street factory in Cleveland are unaffected. Nestlé's research and development work and corporate functions in Solon will continue, preserving a substantial part of the company's presence in the city even as factory employees prepare for their work to end. Hundreds of positions are expected to be affected, according to WJW, although Nestlé had not publicly confirmed an exact number as of Tuesday morning. The station reported that a formal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, commonly called a WARN notice, is expected around March 2027. Nestlé says affected workers will receive separation benefits and transition assistance, with state and local partners involved in that effort. Employees also will be eligible to apply for openings elsewhere within the company, including at other Ohio locations. That offers a possible route to continued employment with Nestlé, although the announcement promises access to available positions rather than automatic transfers. Solon Mayor Edward Kraus acknowledged the consequences for families while emphasizing the operations the city will retain. "This is difficult news for Solon and for the employees and families affected," he said in a statement Monday. Kraus said the city would work with Nestlé and state and regional partners to connect displaced workers with job placement and support services, and he expressed appreciation for the company's continued research and corporate presence. Early public reaction included sympathy for employees, frustration with the company, and concern about the loss of manufacturing work. In a discussion on the Cleveland Reddit forum, some participants recalled Nestlé as a familiar source of jobs, while others asked whether the announcement applied to every company building in Solon. Those exchanges illustrated the confusion surrounding a factory closure within a much larger corporate campus. The company's place in Solon's economy is reflected in the city's own records. Its 2025 list of largest employers estimated 2,314 full-time-equivalent positions at Nestlé Prepared Foods Co., second to Swagelok's 3,179 among the employers listed. The Nestlé figure covers its broader local employment and should not be read as the number of factory jobs being eliminated. It does, however, show why a change in the company's operations reaches well beyond the factory floor. Solon collects a 2% municipal income tax, including on income earned by people working in the city. A reduction in local payroll could therefore affect municipal revenue as well as spending at nearby businesses. The size of that effect will depend on the jobs ultimately lost, the payroll that remains, and whether displaced employees find new work in Solon. The closure announcement does not provide enough information to calculate a reliable dollar loss for the city. The relationship between this community and the business began long before the Nestlé name appeared on its buildings. Stouffer's traces its roots to a Cleveland Arcade dairy counter in 1922 and the opening of its first Cleveland restaurant in 1924. The restaurant business grew into frozen foods, carrying a local family name into grocery stores and kitchens across the country. Nestlé dates the establishment of the Solon operation to 1968, and its acquisition of Stouffer's followed in 1973. Over the following decades, Solon became a place where Nestlé managed and developed food businesses as well as manufactured their products. The company relocated its Hot Pockets and Lean Pockets business team from Colorado in 2012, and its pizza business moved to Solon in 2014. In 2017, Nestlé announced that technical, production, and supply chain functions would move to the campus, a transition expected to bring about 300 jobs. The research center that will remain open represents one of the largest visible investments in that expansion. Nestlé opened the 144,000-square-foot facility in July 2015 after a $50 million project. At its opening, the center housed 120 chefs, researchers, packaging specialists, designers, engineers, and scientists working on frozen and chilled foods. Its responsibilities included developing products, improving nutrition and processing, supporting factories worldwide, and testing recipes and technologies in a pilot plant. The project also reflected years of local cooperation. When Nestlé announced the center in 2013, it credited Solon residents with approving the necessary rezoning by an 85% vote in 2011. The company's decision to retain that research operation preserves a facility that the community helped make possible and that serves a wider purpose than the production lines now scheduled to close. Nestlé's regional connections have extended into community work as well. In 2024, the company announced a partnership with Rid-All Green Partnership in Cleveland's Lower Kinsman neighborhood, combining financial support and employee volunteering to restore a growing space and support urban agriculture education. The project linked employees at the Solon campus with local farmers, young people, and neighborhood food access efforts. The factory closure follows earlier reductions in Solon. Nestlé announced 77 campus job cuts in late 2023 and another 216 factory layoffs in January 2024. A January 2024 notice filed with Ohio officials described additional layoffs as separate from the earlier project and said the planned separations were permanent. Those earlier announcements document a workforce that had already been reduced before this week's decision to close the factory. Nestlé has described the latest move as an effort to serve consumers and "optimize our network," concentrating the Solon factory's production at another plant it already operates. The decision sends that work to a location where the company has spent years expanding its manufacturing capabilities. South Carolina's public records show that Gaffney has received substantial investment in recent years. In June 2021, Nestlé announced a $100 million expansion expected to create approximately 160 jobs at the factory, which opened in 1980 and produces Stouffer's and Lean Cuisine frozen meals. South Carolina approved job development credits for that project. In November 2024, the company announced another $150 million investment in Gaffney, including a new line for single-serving frozen meals and improvements in automation and digital technology. Together, the two announcements represented $250 million in planned investment at the receiving site. The roughly 160 jobs forecast in 2021 were attached to that earlier expansion and are not a count of positions being created by this week's transfer. The decision also comes during a broader effort by Nestlé to reduce costs and simplify its operations. In its 2025 annual results, released in February, the company reiterated plans to reduce its global workforce by about 16,000 positions by the end of 2027. Its earlier announcement divided that target into approximately 12,000 office positions and 4,000 manufacturing and supply chain jobs. The 16,000 figure describes a worldwide plan, not a count of Ohio layoffs. Nestlé says it currently employs nearly 3,000 people across seven Ohio facilities, including manufacturing, research, and corporate operations. Its recent investment elsewhere in the state includes a Purina pet food factory in Batavia, east of Cincinnati. At that facility's August opening, the company reported an investment exceeding $550 million and more than 430 employees, with plans to grow beyond 500. That expansion shows the company is continuing to invest in Ohio, although jobs in southwestern Ohio do not replace factory employment in the Cleveland area. For the Solon property, the announced plan leaves an operating research and corporate campus alongside a factory scheduled to stop producing. The public statements accompanying the closure do not identify a buyer or describe a demolition, redevelopment, or reuse plan for the manufacturing space. The immediate change is the removal of production from that site, while the surrounding Nestlé operations continue. The gradual schedule gives employees and local officials time to pursue the job placement and transition assistance the company and mayor have promised. For affected households, the practical test will be whether that work leads to another job they can reach and a paycheck they can rely on before their employment at the Solon factory ends. -------------------- At Cleveland 13 News, we strive to provide accurate, up-to-date, and reliable reporting. If you spot an error, omission, or have information that may need updating, please email us at tips@cleveland13news.com. As a community-driven news network, we appreciate the help of our readers in ensuring the integrity of our reporting.
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