Massachusetts-Based Yankee Candle Restructures
Whether your favorite Yankee Candle scent is Macintosh, Summer Breeze or Tree Farm Festival, the company develops its fragrances in a lab. The company tests candles in the lab to see that they burn evenly and are safe.
Newell Brands, the company that owns the Massachusetts-based Yankee Candle, opened a new state-of-the-art research and development lab near Yankee Candle's South Deerfield corporate offices in 2019.
The South Deerfield lab is where the Keebler elves of candle making perform their magic.
The company boasted of the lab's opening, "The Newell Brands Home Fragrance Division is one of the main employers in the western Massachusetts region with approximately 1,800 full-time employees across the state."
But the news from Newell Brands these days is less chipper. MassLive reported the company is restructuring, resulting in changes for the popular candlemaker.
Newell Brands said it will cut 13 percent of its global workforce and close Yankee Candle's corporate offices in South Deerfield, Massachusetts. MassLive reported Newell will also close Yankee Candle's Boca Raton, Florida offices.
The company's CEO, Ravi Saligram, posted the bad news on Newell's website.
The company plans to relocate displaced South Deerfield employees to other facilities in Massachusetts, and Newell said the move will not affect the research and development lab, which will remain open.
Newell said Yankee Candle retail stores and distribution and manufacturing sites are not affected by the restructuring and will also remain open.
Yankee Candle was founded in 1969 by Michael J. Kittredge ll in South Hadley, Massachusetts, and can be found today all over the country and online.