Danish global footwear group that has run Eccolet Portugal in São João de Ver (Santa Maria da Feira) since 1984 — ECCO’s first factory outside Denmark. On 2 November 2026 ECCO announced the total and definitive closure of the plant, with the loss of 632 jobs, as part of a global restructuring.
ECCO arrived in Portugal in 1984, locating its first factory outside Denmark in the parish of São João de Ver in Santa Maria da Feira (Aveiro district). Eccolet (Portugal) — Fábrica de Sapatos, Lda was for years one of the largest footwear producers in the country, at one point employing 1,169 staff and producing around 2.8 million pairs of shoes annually for ECCO’s global distribution network. The group had earlier committed a further €20 million to renovate the Santa Maria da Feira facility.
ECCO also operates a factory outlet store on Rua Francisco Rocha in São João de Ver alongside the manufacturing plant. A separate entity, Ecco (Portugal) Sales — Comercialização de Sapatos, Lda, handles Portuguese retail distribution of the ECCO brand.
On 2 November 2026 ECCO told workers it would start the legal procedure for the total and definitive closure of the São João de Ver factory, cutting 632 jobs, alongside the closure of its 1,400-worker plant in Vietnam and about 400 further job cuts in global and regional functions. Production will continue in Indonesia, Thailand and China. Production at the Portuguese plant has already stopped, and the closure is expected in March or April 2027. Read the NorthSouth HQ report.
ECCO is one of the oldest and largest Danish industrial investments in Portugal and a benchmark case for long-term Nordic manufacturing commitment to the country. The Santa Maria da Feira factory anchors Portugal’s footwear cluster in the region around Porto, and ECCO’s 40+ years in Aveiro demonstrate how Nordic operators can build durable industrial footprints in Portuguese manufacturing hubs — a reference point for Danish and Swedish industrial groups evaluating Portuguese production.
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