British American Tobacco is planning to end cigarette manufacturing in Bayreuth, BAT’s largest manufacturing site, and shift production to Eastern Europe, said the newspaper Die Welt.

Up to 1,000 of 1,400 jobs at the plant would be made redundant over an as yet unspecified time, reported the regional newspaper Coburg Neue Presse. Both accounts cited sources at BAT Germany. Officially, BAT Germany reportedly told Die Welt the company would be making a statement in mid-July on the future of its European production sites.
Peak production at the Bayreuth plant was 53 billion sticks. The shift to a site or sites in Poland, Romania, Hungary or Croatia would reduce costs, the newspapers said. In addition to cigarettes, the Bayreuth facility manufactures RYO tobacco, which was expected to continue.