BioKyowa to cut 45 jobs

Business Today

BioKyowa Inc. will cease production of farm-grade amino acid lysine and food-grade nucleic acids by March, resulting in the loss of 45 workers.

Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, the Japan-based parent company of BioKyowa, which is located on Nash Road, is taking a $100 million loss chiefly due to two expansions in the past two years -- one to increase production of lysine and the other to begin production of food supplements for human consumption.

Kohta Fujiwara, president of BioKyowa Inc. and Kyowa Inc., the division that makes food supplements, blamed a slouching Asian economy and oversupply of products.

Two years ago, lysine cost about $1.20 a pound. Currently, prices have dropped to 70 cents a pound. Over the past two years, prices of food supplements have dropped more than 50 percent.

Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, however, will restructure the Cape Girardeau operation. It plans to invest about $10 million in modifying the plant and will maintain about 165 workers, more than double the number at the plant when it opened in 1983.

BioKyowa was recognized last month as the fourth two-time winner of the Commitment to Excellence Award of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce.

"Unhappily, it is necessary to streamline the work force," Fujiwara said. "This difficult and painful decision is an essential part of the restructuring to enable us to achieve a cost-effective operation for the future."

After the restructuring, the local plant will produce industrial grade amino acids for export to Japan and will continue to make feed-grade tryptophan and threonine.

In addition to the 45 who will lose their jobs, another 20 to 30 workers will be laid off for a short while when the food-grade production ends in June or July, said plant manager Bill Hinkley, adding that many workers will have to be retrained for the manufacture of the new products.