Müller Closes Two Eastern Plants and Still Courts Plauen

Müller will close two factories in Germany and put about 320 jobs at risk.

The Homann sauce plant in Rogätz is due to stop by the end of September 2027, and the sliced-cheese operation at Sachsenmilch in Leppersdorf is due to stop on 31 December 2026, while the group still talks to buy Vogtlandmilch in Plauen and has already added Berief Food.

Two Eastern Plants and Two Deadlines

Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller told staff on 6 October 2026. The notice is not one shutdown. It is two clocks, two products, and two very different sites in eastern Germany.

Rogätz, in the Börde district of Saxony-Anhalt, is a Homann sauces factory. Leppersdorf, a part of Wachau in Saxony, is a line inside Sachsenmilch, a dairy campus of about 3,000 people. Sour-milk cheese and mozzarella there keep running.

THE TWO SITES

A company spokesman said branded and private-label sliced cheese would leave Leppersdorf, and that Landliebe cheese would be made under licence by another dairy. He would not name the partner.

Shoppers Left the Glass Jar Behind

The group dated its sauce-plant notice from Luxembourg and Rogätz. Homann Feinkost took the factory in 2008 with Hamker, and Homann has sat inside Müller since 2011. About 160 people heard the plan on site that day.

The company said it had not built a cost base that could price the Rogätz sauces on a lasting, competitive basis, and that the plant also needs heavy new spending. Demand for sauces in glass jars is falling, it said, as buyers move to other packs, so the lines run less full and the cost problem gets worse.

Marcus-Dominic Hauck, managing director of the sauces and dressings unit, put that in writing the same day.

A comprehensive economic analysis has shown that the Rogätz production site has no prospect of recovering from its current loss-making situation and returning to long-term profitability. We are aware that this decision will cause consternation amongst our staff. We will be holding discussions with the works council in the near future, with the aim of finding socially responsible solutions.

Marcus-Dominic Hauck, Managing Director, Sauces and Dressings, Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller, 6 October 2026

Homann’s own pages still name a second German sauce site at Bad Essen/Lintorf, plus fish delicatessen work in Poznan, Poland. The brand is not being retired. The glass-jar plant is.

Why the Homann Sauce Line Never Recovered

Rogätz is being closed because the group says the site cannot get back to profit, glass-jar sauces are losing buyers, and the plant would need heavy investment it will not get. That is the same kind of verdict Müller issued after it bought Landliebe, and the same pattern the food union now says it sees across the group.

In February 2024, a year after it took most of Royal FrieslandCampina’s German dairy brands, Müller told about 400 staff at Heilbronn and Schefflenz that both Landliebe plants would be wound down. Cornelia Heiser, then managing director for Landliebe, said a comprehensive economic analysis had shown no path back from deep losses, and that the range would move into other German Müller sites.

Schefflenz went dark in 2024. Heilbronn is due to stop by the end of 2026, with machines already coming out. NGG, the food and hospitality union, says those Landliebe lines were sent toward Aretsried in Bavaria and toward Leppersdorf, the same Saxon campus now losing sliced cheese.

THE BUY-AND-CLOSE FILE

1. 2008: Homann Feinkost takes the Rogätz sauce factory with Hamker.
2. 2011: Homann becomes part of Unternehmensgruppe Theo Müller.
3. 2023: Müller takes most of FrieslandCampina’s German dairy brands, including Landliebe.
4. 21 February 2024: About 400 Landliebe staff at Heilbronn and Schefflenz are told both plants will close.
5. End of 2024: Schefflenz closes; Heilbronn winds down toward the end of 2026.
6. 2026: Müller adds Berief Food, a tofu and dairy-alternatives maker with a plant in Beckum.
7. September 2026: The group confirms talks to buy Vogtlandmilch, including the Plauen plant.
8. 6 October 2026: Staff at Rogätz and Leppersdorf are told their lines will stop.
9. 31 December 2026: Leppersdorf sliced cheese is due to halt.
10. End of September 2027: Rogätz is due to cease operations at the Rogätz factory.

The 2026 sauce notice uses the same “comprehensive economic analysis” language as the 2024 Landliebe notice. The brands stay on the shelf. The plants that made them do not.

Leppersdorf Keeps Mozzarella and Lets Sliced Cheese Go

Sachsenmilch is not being boarded up. The cut is the sliced-cheese block, plus packing and the office work tied to it, on 31 December 2026. Mozzarella and sour-milk cheese stay, the company said, and so does a campus of about 3,000 people.

Frank Siebert, the Sachsenmilch works council chair, told staff the first reaction was shock. His message after that was blunt: “Niemand muss Angst haben um seinen Arbeitsplatz.” Nobody has to fear for their job, in his telling, because the council is bargaining to move all 160 people into other parts of the same dairy.

Siebert called the timing, from the council’s side, as good as it gets. Shorter hours and the end of 12-hour shifts had already left the site short of people, he said, so the campus can offer each of those workers a job in Leppersdorf. Concrete answers are due by the end of October 2026. He also said milk suppliers should not see a hard hit, because the volumes can go to other buyers.

That is the part a single 320-job headline flattens. Leppersdorf is losing a format the company no longer wants to fund. It is not losing the dairy.

Works Councils Face Two Very Different Problems

Rogätz has no mozzarella hall next door. When the sauce plant stops, the site stops. NGG says jobs in that part of Börde are scarce, and that it will push with the works council for a social plan and a transfer company.

Hauck said talks with the Rogätz works council would start soon after the 6 October meeting, with “socially responsible solutions” as the aim. NGG asked why the council was brought in so late, and it told members not to sign new papers before taking advice.

WHAT THE TWO WORKFORCES FACE

• Rogätz, about 160 people: The whole factory is due to go by the end of September 2027, with a social plan and a transfer company still to be fought for in a thin local job market.
• Leppersdorf sliced cheese, about 160 people: The line stops on 31 December 2026, while the works council bargains to place everyone elsewhere on a 3,000-person campus, with names and roles due by the end of October 2026.
• Landliebe Heilbronn: The plant is still coming down after the 2024 notice to about 400 staff at Heilbronn and Schefflenz, and it is due to stop by the end of 2026 as the brand’s making moves to other Müller sites.

NGG wants Leppersdorf staff offered equal jobs inside the company, on equal terms, with no silent downgrade in the small print.

Plauen Stays on the Buy List

Weeks before the closure notices, Sachsenmilch managers told a farmer meeting in Gospersgrün that Müller wanted Vogtlandmilch, the Plauen dairy. The group later confirmed talks with Vogtlandmilch’s management and supervisory board, including the plant, and said any deal would need cartel clearance. It called the talks early and would not say more.

Vogtlandmilch, founded in 1928, makes quark, UHT milk, butter, and buttermilk in Plauen and employs about 150 people. Udo Weymann, a board member of the Plauen milk producers’ group, said farmers were told the site would be kept and built up, and that they would get about three cents more per kilogram of milk. Steffen Zenner, the mayor of Plauen, warned about the risk to the site and its jobs. Wolfram Günther, a former Saxon agriculture minister, said the move would let the state’s largest milk processor swallow the second-largest.

People around the company have said the cheese cut and the Plauen talks should not be mixed. One is a profit problem on sliced cheese. The other is a bid for a dairy the group wants.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The talks: Müller has confirmed discussions to buy Vogtlandmilch, including the Plauen plant, subject to competition clearance.
• Berief Food: The group already bought the tofu and dairy-alternatives maker in 2026, with a factory in Beckum in western Germany.
• The brands: Homann sauces and Landliebe stay; Landliebe cheese is due to be made under licence by an unnamed dairy.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A closed Plauen deal: No sale has been announced, and the group still calls the talks early.
• The Landliebe cheese partner: The licensee has not been named.
• Final Rogätz terms: The social plan and any transfer company are not yet agreed.

If Plauen is bought and kept, Saxony would watch Müller add a dairy in the same season it strips sliced cheese out of Leppersdorf. That is a reshuffle, not a shrinking company.

NGG Wants Equal Jobs Inside the Group

On 9 October 2026 the eastern branch of NGG went after the sequence, not only the two dates. It said Müller had flagged a Vogtlandmilch takeover only weeks earlier, then announced a partial shutdown at Leppersdorf and a full shutdown at Rogätz. In the union’s words, the group buys plants and then closes them.

The company buys plants and then closes them again. The staff can only watch. That is no responsible way to treat people who have worked there, in some cases for decades.

NGG Ost, 9 October 2026 statement

NGG said Rogätz had been a profit engine on specialised sauce work, and that running it down without a market fix was now coming due. It wants equal jobs for the Leppersdorf cheese crew, a social plan and transfer company in Börde, and fast clarity for Vogtlandmilch staff. On X it put the same point in one line: workers are not a shifting mass.

Sachsenmilch in Leppersdorf, Homann in Rogätz: Wieder sollen über 300 Arbeitsplätze bei Unternehmen der Müller-Gruppe wegfallen.
Wir sagen klar: Beschäftigte sind keine Verschiebemasse.
Mehr dazu auf unserer Website: 👉 https://t.co/jyCDez6coW pic.twitter.com/0fMlxPM6hF

— Gewerkschaft NGG Ost (@NggOst) October 9, 2026

The louder public row has been about the owner’s politics. That row does not change the factory math. Rogätz is a town losing a plant on a format shoppers have already left. Leppersdorf is a giant dairy dropping sliced cheese and trying to park 160 people in mozzarella and sour-milk cheese. Homann and Landliebe stay on the label. Plauen is still a conversation. The works councils have until the end of October 2026 to turn those differences into named jobs, or into a social plan for the site that has nowhere else to send people.