Perrigo will lay off 161 employees from its infant formula production facility in Georgia, Vt., the company said Tuesday — roughly 40% of the site’s workforce.
The announcement comes as the company prepares to close down the facility entirely. A Perrigo spokesperson said in an email Tuesday that the company intends to end production at the Georgia site by June 30, 2026. Some packaging and other activities will continue for now, the spokesperson said, but previous company comments projected a complete shutdown of the facility by next year.
This round of layoffs is “phase one” of the closure process, the spokesperson said, which will ultimately affect roughly 420 staff in total.
“Employees were informed earlier in 2025 about this plan, and Perrigo continues to actively engage with and support team members affected during this phase of the transition,” said the spokesperson.
Perrigo has operated the site since 2010, but told VtDigger last year that the current situation there was “not cost-effective.” The company cited aging infrastructure and “evolving regulatory requirements” in its statement last year, and did not provide additional details Tuesday. Perrigo also purchased a large baby formula production facility in Wisconsin in 2022.
Rep. Carolyn Branagan, R-Georgia, expressed deep disappointment in an interview Tuesday and said that the closure represented a “failure” on the part of state regulators. Land use policies had made it difficult for Perrigo to expand in the past, she said, which may have been a factor in the company’s exit.
“We’re losing an excellent company (that) employs 400 people in my hometown,” she said.
After speaking with some employees, Branagan said she was confident that the highly-skilled workforce would generally be able to find work elsewhere. But the Representative said she would continue to push for stronger economic development in the area in the Statehouse.
Georgia, a small lakeside town between Burlington and St. Albans, Vt., has a population of roughly 5,000.
Rachel Dumeny, a spokesperson for the Vermont Department of Labor, said the agency is aware of the announcement and is “always concerned to hear about layoffs.”
“Our Workforce Development team has been in contact with the company to provide access to reemployment services, training opportunities when appropriate, and unemployment insurance benefits if immediate reemployment isn’t feasible,” Dumeny said.
Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VtDigger. This story was republished with permission from VtDigger, which offers its reporting at no cost to local news organizations through its Community News Sharing Project. To learn more, visit vtdigger.org/community-news-sharing-project.