Dive Brief:
- Alpina Foods, the U.S. unit of Colombia's Alpina dairy company, announced Friday it would lay off 32 workers at its plant in Batavia, NY.
- Alpina blamed the decision on the recent loss of a contract with an unnamed buyer of its yogurts.
- News of the layoffs came at a particularly inopportune time. New York State named yogurt as its official state snack on Friday.
Dive Insight:
New York is the top yogurt-producing state in the nation. That's largely because of the massive operations of Fage and Chobani, both based in the same dairy-heavy region of the state where Alpina is based. So as bad as the news from Alpina may be, and as unfortunate as the timing of the announcement was, there's nothing to suggest that the yogurt industry or its role in New York State is at risk.