Belgian frozen-vegetable maker Ardo has formally turned down a federal and state rescue package for its plant at Groß-Enzersdorf in Lower Austria, saying it would need €112mn (about $125mn) to keep the site running.

The closure will leave Austria without what farm representatives say is its only line for freezing leafy vegetables such as spinach, and affects 190 employees and 50 agency workers.

In a letter to the federal government seen by the Austria Presse Agentur (APA) and reported on 11 October, Ardo said a plant focused on spinach alone would still need €66mn, and that neither scenario was financially viable.

The site had lost an average of €5mn a year since 2023, it said, despite about €50mn of investment since Ardo bought it in 2008.

"Energy prices, labour costs and raw-material costs are substantially higher in Austria than in many other parts of Europe," the company wrote, according to APA.

A red FMC pea harvester working a green pea field in the Marchfeld, Lower Austria

Ardo plans to keep producing until December 2026 and to close the site by the end of August 2027, then supply Austria from its other European plants, keeping only a sales office in the Vienna region.

The plant, in the Marchfeld, the plain east of Vienna that is Austria's main vegetable-growing area, makes frozen vegetables for Nomad Foods' Iglo brand and for the own-label ranges of retailers Billa, Hofer and Spar.

Agriculture Minister Norbert Totschnig, Lower Austria's governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner and her deputy Stephan Pernkopf had offered Ardo a lease, a takeover of the production line or one or two more years of operation.

After a second meeting with its management on 7 October, Ardo said it and its advisers believed the federal government's package would not survive a European Commission review under state-aid rules – the EU limits on public subsidies to companies – and competition rules.

The company also rejected a sale after two domestic investors approached it. "We don't believe a new owner could realistically return the plant to profit given these challenges," Ardo said.

Equipment will move to other group sites and no further meetings are planned, an Ardo spokesperson was cited as saying by exxpress.

Ardo said after the 7 October meeting that it remained willing to discuss with the ETG growers' organisation and government representatives "how the transition for local farmers can be eased".

PROFITABLE OR LOSS-MAKING

The politicians dispute Ardo's economics. "They want to close a profitable site – Austria out, Belgian vegetables in," they said in a joint statement after the meeting.

"Whoever shuts a plant down cold like this and won't even leave the farmers the production machinery, just to prevent red-white-red competition, leaves scorched earth," Pernkopf told APA, referring to Austria's national colours.

The subsidiary's latest filed accounts, for 2024-25, showed a profit of €1.86mn on revenue of €80.49mn, Forbes België reported on 6 October, citing Austrian press. The letter, as reported by APA, does not say how the €5mn average loss was calculated.

GROWERS WITHOUT A BUYER

About 270 farms delivered to the plant in 2025, according to Ardo. They belong to the Erzeugerorganisation Tiefkühlgemüse (ETG), a producer organisation whose 500 members grow vegetables for processing on about 3,300 hectares, mostly in the Marchfeld.

Deliveries to Ardo last year came to about 40,000 tonnes of raw vegetables worth €18.5mn, ranging from peas, edamame and beans to spinach, carrots and cabbage, the Lower Austria chamber of agriculture said.

More than 80 per cent of Austria's frozen vegetables are produced at Groß-Enzersdorf, the chamber's vice-president Lorenz Mayr told ORF radio on 8 October.

"Without the Ardo plant it's a medium-sized catastrophe," Robert Kriegl, who chairs the growers' frozen-vegetable cooperative, told exxpress. He conceded that domestic vegetables would probably only work if retailers paid more for them.

Spinach is the hardest crop to place. Spar has agreed that Schneider's Gemüseland, a family-owned processor also based in Groß-Enzersdorf that already makes about 20 of its products, will take over five more of its frozen lines from Ardo from summer 2027, Spar spokesperson Nicole Berkmann told APA.

But Schneider's cannot yet process spinach or red cabbage, top agrar reported.

Iglo said in September it was working on "solutions that allow us to continue sourcing vegetables from the Marchfeld", and Hofer that it would discuss possible options with its partners. Neither they nor Billa have said where they will source after the closure.

"We don't know whether there will still be a buyer next year," Johann Blatt, a grower at Franzensdorf who has supplied the plant since the 1970s, told top agrar in German. He has already prepared his fields for winter spinach but does not yet know what he will sow in them.

This year's harvest is still to be processed before Ardo withdraws in stages, top agrar reported. Blatt fears that retailers will stock up with foreign produce and that frozen-spinach production will be lost from Austria for good before an alternative or new investor emerges.

BELGIUM ALREADY THE MAIN SUPPLIER

Austria's frozen-spinach trade is small and has run in the country's favour. Austria exported 3,570 tonnes of frozen spinach in 2025, mainly to the Netherlands, Hungary, Belgium and Croatia, and imported 2,690 tonnes, according to Eurostat data accessed via Cropli. It has been a net exporter in nine of the past 10 years.

Belgium supplied 57 per cent of last year's imports and has been the largest supplier every year since at least 2016.

[explore reporter="at" products="071030" view="chart" metric="quantity" years="2016-2025" title="Austria's frozen-spinach imports by supplier, 2016–2025" subtitle="Tonnes, HS 071030. Belgium has been the largest supplier every year, with 52–68 per cent of the total; 2025: 2,690 tonnes. Source: Eurostat"]

Across all frozen vegetables, Austria is already a net importer, buying 45,000 tonnes in 2025, mainly from Belgium and Germany, against exports of 37,600.

"The supply of frozen vegetables is, as things stand, secure," the agriculture ministry said in German in September, adding that it assumed any volumes missing from domestic production would be substituted if needed.

[explore reporter="at" products="0710" view="chart" metric="quantity" years="2016-2025" title="Austria's frozen-vegetable imports by supplier, 2016–2025" subtitle="Tonnes, all frozen vegetables (HS 0710). Belgium and Germany supplied 37 and 35 per cent of 2025's 45,000 tonnes. Source: Eurostat"]

Ardo is also cutting at home. Its 2025 operating profit fell 31 per cent to €33.3mn on revenue of €1.36bn, Belgian newspaper De Tijd reported.

This year it has cut 37 jobs at Ardooie in West Flanders, the last 10 after deciding not to restart a line idle since February.

Its Austrian exit follows a 22 per cent fall in Bonduelle's European current operating profit and McCain's decision to shelve a €1bn German fry plant, citing excess capacity in Europe.

The site, which began as a Unilever plant in the 1960s, has come close to closing before.

It was rescued in 2005 by Saxony's Frenzel, when "the fate of 260 employees and 300 farms hung by a thread", the then governor Erwin Pröll said a year later, when the plant supplied around 80 per cent of Austria's frozen vegetables.

Upper Austrian vegetable processor efko has been reported to be exploring new frozen capacity with Schneider's and the ETG. "Whether and in what form efko takes part in a possible solution for frozen processing is open at present," the company said on 11 October.