Eden Prairie refrigeration facility laying off 91 workers

Copeland Cold Chain, an HVAC and refrigeration technology company based in St. Louis, will lay off 91 employees at its Eden Prairie facility this year.

The layoffs will start on June 30 and finish by the end of the year. Copeland’s letter to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) indicated 31 employees in engineering and support roles will continue to work at the Eden Prairie plant and serve the company’s food retail and grocery customers.

“Copeland has made the difficult decision to move our Eden Prairie manufacturing and distribution operations to existing Copeland operations facilities in North America,” Copeland said per the DEED letter.

In a separate statement, the company said that “this is a business decision based on Copeland’s review of operations to maintain competitiveness and provide the best possible service to our customers.” It went on to say affected employees will receive at least a two-month notice and will have severance, health care continuation subsidies and other support during the transition.

St. Louis-based Emerson Electric Co. previously owned the company before New York-based private equity firm Blackstone acquired a majority stake in Emerson’s climate technology business last year and rebranded it as Copeland. In 2019, Emerson had expanded its automation business in the Twin Cities with 3,500 Minnesota employees. An Emerson representative said the business currently has about 3,000 workers in the state.

Globally, Copeland has more than 18,000 employees with customers in more than 110 countries.