Mondelez to cut 600 jobs in Chicago

The maker of Chips Ahoy and Oreo cookies will eliminate about 600 jobs in Chicago after deciding to install new manufacturing lines in Mexico rather than at a South Side plant.

Mondelez International, the Deerfield-based company, announced Wednesday it will invest $130 million to install four manufacturing lines at a production center in Salinas, Mexico, which opened last year. The new lines will be in place by mid-2016 and will replace nine manufacturing lines at its Chicago biscuit plant.

“The Chicago plant has been and will continue to be an important part of the company’s North American biscuit footprint, producing a variety of beloved consumer products,” Olivier Bouret, a company vice president, said in a news release. “While the new investment will affect approximately 600 positions in Chicago, we’re committed to treating all impacted employees fairly through this difficult time.”

The Chicago plant will remain one of Mondelez’s largest North American plants in terms of employment, and the company said it will continue to upgrade the plant’s capabilities, technologies and infrastructure.

Mondelez had already planned to close one of its two South Side bakery buildings and consolidate operations at 7300 S. Kedzie Ave.

The company said it started in April sizing up where to put the production lines, a process that included meeting with unions that represent workers at the South Side bakeries.