Beko Europe announces long-term business transformation plan for Italy

€110 million of investment focused on built-in cooking, R&D, and strategic functions
Cassinetta (VA) and Melano (AN) confirmed as production hubs for microwaves, ovens and built-in hobs for Europe. Downsizing of built-in refrigerator production planned in Cassinetta
Reindustrialization plan to be explored in Siena and Comunanza
Production will continue to be operational until end of 2025

Today at a meeting in Rome with Unions at the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy Beko Europe set out its long-term business transformation plan for Italy. The meeting comes after the one held on 7 November, which followed the company’s comprehensive review of its European business. The review showed much of the production base to be underperforming financially, as a result of a challenging industry context, including increased competition from players from Asia and weakened demand. Within this context, current capacity utilization rates in Italy are unsustainable, dropping to an average of under 40 percent this year – 20 percent less than in 2017 when European industry sales were at the same level as today. This has led to significant losses of tens of millions of euros over the past seven years.

The business transformation plan announced will optimize existing operations and reshape the company’s presence in Italy to create a sustainable long-term footprint. Its goal is to preserve a strong manufacturing base in Europe, with Italy positioned as a strategic hub within Beko’s global business.

Italy will be Beko's centre of excellence for global industrial design as well as global cooking, including research and development (R&D), underpinned by an investment of €110m. The new investment will enable the design of new products, leveraging robotics, automation and digitalization. Italy will remain a key decision-making center across strategic functions, including HR, marketing, supply chain, IT, R&D, and product design. With Italy as production hub for Cooking, Beko Europe will launch a new suite of built-in suite of products in the coming years, including a microwave, oven and induction hobs to cover the core and premium range at its plants in Melano (AN) and Cassinetta di Biandronno (VA). Operations at both these plants will be streamlined and receive investment to boost automation and efficiency.

The Carinaro plant will be maintained as the company’s European Spare Parts Distribution Center, alongside the household appliance refurbishment operations launched in 2023, with a process to optimize staffing initiated.

In Laundry and Refrigeration, significant changes to current production are planned. With reference to refrigeration, the Siena site will not be the recipient of further investments due to the structural loss of competitiveness and accumulated losses over the past five years in the order of tens of millions of euros, despite significant investments made in the horizontal freezer category. With reference to washing, the Comunanza (AP) site, despite significant investments received in recent years, is in critical condition from the point of view of economic sustainability in the long term and the possibility of maintaining operations with a sustainable level of profitable production. A reindustrialization plan, including the potential conversion of the existing plants, will be explored in both Siena and Comunanza. The Cassinetta di Biandronno (VA) refrigeration site is showing a structural loss of cost competitiveness and, among those located in Italy, is the site that has seen the highest cumulative losses realized despite the substantial investments made over the past seven years. A rationalization of production activities will be initiated at the site, keeping production active for three of the five lines currently in operation. Redundancies related to the affected production units in Cassinetta, Siena and Comunanza are estimated at 1,151.

The plan also envisages efficiency gains in the organizational models of the current production set-ups for the built-in oven and built-in microwave oven factories in Cassinetta di Biandronno (VA) and the built-in cooktop factory in Melano (AN), which will benefit from investments in automation and process efficiency. Workforce rightsizing is also planned at the Melano (AN) and Carinaro (CE) sites estimated at about 60 and 40 people, respectively.

To align with Beko’s reshaped manufacturing base, we will adjust central functions in Milan and Fabriano. This includes operational and commercial roles involved in merging the legacy companies, as well as the R&D teams in Cassinetta di Biandronno, Milan, and Fabriano. These changes aim to remove duplicate structures, with estimated redundancies affecting 678 positions.

The company understands that the plan announced today is difficult, but it is also necessary to guarantee a sustainable and competitive future for Beko Europe’s operations in Italy. The company recognizes the impact it will have on the people and communities concerned and is therefore committed to maintaining active production at the Siena, Comunanza, and Cassinetta plants until the end of 2025, absorbing significant losses, so a future pathway can be best found.

Beko Europe will now continue to work collaboratively and openly with national and regional authorities, as well as Unions, to secure as many jobs as possible in Italy.

Press Release