Unions have labelled the decision of Canberra Milk owner's, Bega Group, to close its last processing plant in the ACT as "disappointing".
The company announced on Wednesday it would be relocating Canberra's only dairy manufacturer to its facility in Penrith in Western Sydney.
Bega Group purchased Capitol Chilled Foods, who produced Canberra Milk, in November 2020.
"The changing nature of the dairy market within the ACT has meant that Bega's Griffith facility has not been operating at its full capacity for some time," the statement said.
"This, combined the fact that there have not been dairy farms within the ACT for many years, has created challenges for the Canberra site."
The 19 employees affected by the announcement will receive either redundancy packages or redeployment where possible, the company said.
However, secretary of UnionsACT Kasey Tomkins said there are more than 19 employees at the facility.
"This is a perfect example of big corporations such as Bega streamlining their operations resulting in negative impacts on local communities," Ms Tomkins said.
"We know that there are a lot more than 19 workers at the Canberra Milk facility, but Bega has washed their hands of any responsibility to those workers through the abhorrent practice of labour hire.
"These workers will not have access to any redundancy pay or redeployment opportunities. It's not good enough.
"It's also very disappointing when longstanding workplaces move their labour elsewhere."
United Workers Union dairy coordinator Neil Smith also condemned the job cuts by dairy companies like Bega and Saputo, with the latter closing three plants in Victoria and South Australia in November.
"The union is concerned that hugely profitable food manufacturing corporations like Bega and Saputo are using the dwindling milk supply as an excuse to consolidate and cut jobs and put further downward pressure on dairy farmers," Mr Smith said.
"Workers and farmers shouldn't have to bear the brunt of climate change induced disasters such as the various floods and bushfires that have plagued dairy country over the last couple of years."
Former Capitol Chilled Foods employee Rachel Morales left the company in January after working at the Griffith factory for 17 months as a call centre operator taking orders.
Ms Morales said the announcement of the closure is sad, but not surprising.
"I left only for the purpose of I was a contractor for 17 months, and was constantly told that I would get a permanent position, that never happened," she said.
"Once I found a new job and handed in my resignation, that's when they offered me a permanent position. But I was like, too little too late.
"Everyone sort of knew what has happened was going to happen. When Bega took over they explained a lot that Canberra Milk was going to have its own entity and remain local.
"But there was a lot of talk in the office about Bega completely taking over and all the changes that were going to happen. So that was another thing that made me get out.
"Everything was sort of remote. So we had a team leader that was working on site and once he resigned, they didn't fill his position.
"Our boss was actually located in Docklands in Melbourne. So we had to liaise with our boss from Zoom and stuff like that."
Ms Morales said she is sad to see Canberra Milk move, and believes it will lose customers.
"Definitely I'm sad and I think a lot of customers would be too because they want to support local. So I think it's going to be a very big shock for them, that they may lose a lot of customers because it's not local anymore," Ms Morales said.
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