POCATELLO — The Heinz Frozen Food plant here will be closing over the next six to eight months putting 410 people out of work. Pocatello’s facility is one of three that H.J. Heinz announced it is closing in North America and Canada. The Pocatello plant produces frozen meals and snacks.
“Our decision to consolidate manufacturing across North America is a critical step in our plan to ensure we are operating as efficiently and effectively as possible to become more competitive in a challenging environment, and to accelerate the company’s future growth,” Michael Mullen, senior vice president of corporate and government affairs for Heinz, said in a Thursday news release sent to the Journal.
The company said the move comes after “an extensive review of our company’s North American supply chain footprint, capabilities and capacity utilization.”
Heinz said it plans to offer severance benefits, outplacement services and other support to affected employees.
Other plants being idled by Heinz are the Florence, S.C., with 200 employees and, Leamington, Ontario, Canada, 740 employees. The plant closures were announced Thursday, eight months after billionaire Warren Buffett’s investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway, joined with another firm, 3G Capital, to buy H.J. Heinz for $23.3 billion. It was a move called the largest deal ever in the food industry.
Regional economist for the Idaho Department of Labor Dan Cravens said the bad news is a hard pill to swallow for Pocatello, which had an official unemployment rate of 7.8 percent in August.
“Closures like this are always a little difficult to deal with,” Cravens said.
In addition to the 410 direct jobs lost, Cravens estimates another 200 employment positions could be adversely impacted by the Heinz closure. The Idaho Department of Labor lists Heinz as one of the 11 largest private employers in Bannock County.
“With the holiday shopping season, this is not good news for retailers either,” Cravens said.
News of the pending closure also came as a blow to John Regetz, executive director of the Bannock Development Corp.
“It’s terrible news and you always feel badly for the people being laid off,” Regetz said.
Regetz said his organization will be working hard to collaborate with Heinz on selling the Pocatello facility to another food processor. He pointed out that the Heinz operation in Pocatello was singled out for recognition as being the most productive facility in the entire Heinz operation in 2011.
“It should be viable in the marketplace,” Regetz said about the facility.
Cravens shared that optimism.
“Once the site is vacated, it should be pretty marketable,” Cravens said.
In the meantime, Cravens said the Department of Labor will be doing all it can to help workers gain new skills and find employment.
“We will be doing all we can as an agency to help people affected by the Heinz closure,” Cravens said.
The announcement of a shutdown in the coming months followed the layoff of 80 Heinz employees last February. At that time, the company said the job cuts came because Heinz was ending its T.G.I. Friday’s line of frozen meals.
Heinz Frozen Food had its first layoff of employees back in September 2009, when it reduced the plant’s workforce by 65 people. Before those layoffs, the company had a workforce of nearly 800 at the plant.
The facility had operated as Kraft Foods until it was purchased by Ore-Ida in 1989. Ore-Ida is owned by H.J. Heinz.
Among the main products made in the Pocatello plant at that time was Weight Watchers meals.
The plant in Ontario was the first production facility for Heinz ketchup outside of the U.S. and was established in 1909. Leamington, located east of Detroit, Mich., has a total population of about 28,000.
Florence, S.C., has a total population of 37,000 and the Heinz plant there opened in 2011, according a story in The Florence Morning News. The same article said the Florence County Council had approved the sale of $3 million in special source revenue bonds in 2010 to reimburse the county for its expenditures in economic development projects including the Heinz plant there.
(17) comments
Ha, ha, ha Carriath. The whole red state went for Romney I'm sorry to say. And Warren Buffett and other major contributors of Obama don't give a rat's rear end about Idaho's 4 electoral votes. Its about money, that's all. Idaho would elect a mule if it had an R by its name on the ballot.
Let's see Hoku shut down, now Heinz. I've been following a pattern and for now let's just call it a conspiracy theory. Warren Buffet was a major campaign contributor to Obama, and both plants that are closing are in two counties that resulted for Romney... I'm being to wonder if it isn't completely impossible that wealthy campaign contributors are using their funds to punish and prevent economic improvement in regions they view as politically unfavorable.
DC NYLA is completely correct. Capitalism is all about winners and losers. Winners are rewarded very well. Losers not so much, you may not like it when jobs are leaving your community, but it is the nature of the beast.
And sorry, Whitebird, it is this Mayor's fault. Blad's job 1 must be recruiting, enough said. I read his comment that he has one other business he called. I learned early as a corporate recruiter that successful recruiting is all about keeping your recruiting pipeline full of potential candidates. This means a recruiter must have good quality candidates at each stage of the pipeline. Each stage is a selection decision, is this right for my city and its citizens, if not you end the process with that candidate. A good recruiter learns quickly that successful recruiting is all about selection and one candidate does not allow Blad to make a selection. Can Blad control the economy, no way. Can he control this city's recruiting process for employers and jobs, absolutely!!!! And I am here to tell you that Blad's comment about one replacement to call, sent chills to my heart. Now he is in that recruiting nightmare of whether or not his one is a good fit for us, he must select them. I learned early when a recruiter backs themselves into the recruiting nightmare, it never ends well for anyone. We had a saying, "are you willing to bet your career on that recruiting choice? Because that is exactly what your are doing."
Whitebird,
When it doesn't directly impact us in a negative way, we worship business in this country. How many times have you heard someone say, "government should be operated just like a business"?
Well, this is how a business operates.
Its unflinching, uncaring, bottom-line way of looking at life benefits us all when it works, and can snuff us out when it fails.
The bottom has fallen out of the Frozen Food market. Is that Warren Buffett's fault, or the fault of consumers not buying Heinz products?
The dirty little secret of Capitalism is that it is almost always motivated by some degree of greed. I don't know a single investor who wants to lose money; and, unfortunately, there is precious little "feel good" investment (or, "feel good" opportunities to investment).
Yes, the Heinz plant closing hurts and, yes I feel the Mayor should have been more forthcoming during his campaign for reelection.
His opponent was willing to tell us the truth, and Pocatello voted for the lie instead.
It's not all the mayors fault. it's the GREED in OLD MAN BUFFETTT and a few other people I know just like him. To them it's about $$$$$$$ not who they are hurting, causing to be homeless, going hungry. It's all about how much $they can make in this little life of theirs with their little minds. And they will see in the end who really wins the jackpot
I find it interesting that every time a disaster like Hoku, Heinz etc happens you get basically the same comments from the powers that be, the folks making very good money in the economic development sector.
It's always along the lines of, "oh this is a developed site, this is a very marketable site..."
But when have you ever seen another company moving in to those sites (or any sites) to take their place? And if it has happened, HOW LONG did it take to happen?
I don't know what else you can say...bad things happen and they sure seem to be happening a lot to Pocatello, there has to be a reason for it. Maybe it starts with economic leadership, if that's the case, then maybe it's time to make some serious changes.
I feel very bad for the folks about to lose their jobs, in a tough economic situation with basically nothing here if they'd like to stay.
Simply terrible news.
Amen, Brother Rango!
As to all the no-nothings below, yes - as a good citizen - chances are Heinz did forewarn our City's leadership of their impending closing. Most companies do as a courtesy, and there is no reason to believe Heinz wouldn't have. Even if they didn't, there were strong signals clearly out there for months that this was coming.
Back in time: It wasn't too long ago that Mayor Chase got word that Farmers Insurance was planning to leave the city. He marshaled his Economic Development team and headed to their Corporate HQ in Los Angeles to ask - in person - what Pocatello could do to keep Farmers Insurance here. They're still here, aren't they? Ditto On Semiconductor, the former AMI. They're still here, aren't they?
That's the difference between true leadership and a fast talking wannabe.
Before you answer back, you might want to hold your breath and count to ten: There's another big employment announcement coming soon, and it won't be pretty.
Just remember: Ya get what ya vote for.
For over a month, Blad has made sure he was at every major event in Pocatello, to the point where you took your life in your hands if you erred in standing between the Mayor and a camera lens. Now that Heinz has announced it is closing and laying off hundreds of workers in Pocatello, increasing our city's already sky-high unemployment rate, Brian Blad is nowhere to be found, and seems to have lost his capacity to form words. Perhaps he's too preoccupied with the task of creating excuses for the IRS as to why he kept no logs and paid no taxes for his personal use of a taxpayer-funded vehicle for the last two years?
Do I think Hoku was Blad's fault? NO. Do I think Heinz was Blad's fault? NO. On Blad's campaign postcard his #1 claim to fame was that under his leadership, jobs and local business growth are on the rise and that he helped gain more that 2200 jobs back from more that 3500 lost under former leadership. So he blames all lost jobs on former leadership and takes credit for all jobs gained under his leadership. Although I question his numbers, they never did match the Dept. of Labors, he is the one that accepts credit for all jobs. He points his finger in blame when things go wrong and clearly states somebody else was at fault. This is what he mailed to every household in Pocatello. I think that assumption was poor judgment on Blad's part but why I feel he has to take the good with the bad. Do I hope that Blad is doing everything possible to help in the situation? YES.
I'm "looking forward," Mayor.
I'm looking forward to your explanation as to why, 1. You didn't know about Heinz (when their employees have been aware for sometime, many out looking for work); or, 2. you knew, and kept this "inconvenient truth" from us during the election?
You have an economic development team, didn't they know before yesterday? It should have been obvious, considering that Heinz had built, then never opened, a new plant elsewhere, because the frozen foods market has tanked.
I also notice that you are suspiciously absent of comment in the ISJ article today. Where are you?
Again IrishEyes, you speak complete assumptions on your part. Your conclusions that this was Blad's fault are completely baseless. I am not necessarily a Blad supporter, and have known and respected Chase for over 20 years. The point is, there is no evidence publicly known that indicates this is anything relating to the mayor. This is unfortunate for the people of Pocatello, no doubt, and I do hope Blad has/is doing everything he possibly can on behalf of the citizens of Pocatello in this situation.
If you know so much about Hoku then you know their entire method of financing their business was built on a house of cards. Way too many variables that could go wrong that would let it fail if just one thing went wrong. None of those variables were ones that Blad could control.
If Chase were mayor when Hoku failed, then would that be his fault because it was on his watch? By your view, yes it would be. By mine, no it would not be Chase's fault. Just the result of a lot of poor deicsions and unfortunate circumstances.
I never blamed Hoku's financial collapse on Blad, although it did happen on his watch. I probably understand more about Hoku than you do. You are right about that the business is the one that will decide when to pull the plug and the mayor is pretty limited on what he can do. But its still on his watch. He never hesitated to slap himself on the back for ANY business that came into town in his term. He hopped on a plane to Chicago for Allstate although Chubbucks mayor didn't go. To hear him tell, he brought Allstate here single handedly. You can't pick and choose, you have to take the good and the bad. This is a huge loss for our community, and its on his watch. Its his legacy.
Irisheyes, what makes you think Heinz even talked to Blad before the decision was made to close the Pocatello facility? Like a previous comment you made blaming Hoku’s financial collapse on Blad being the mayor, you demonstrate your ignorance on business decisions being made by businesses, not elected officials.
A mayor (whoever it is) may have an opportunity to help entice/recruit/retain an employer but their overall ability to influence that decision is pretty limited. The business owns that decision and if they want to keep that decision to themselves until disclosed publically, they can.
Pretty sure that even if Blad wanted to offer incentives to Heinz to stay, he would need the city council to vote on any proposal. Heinz sure isn’t going to want the topic of their plant closure to be an agenda item of a city council meeting.
Wow, redlemo you must be psychic because you sure think you are good at reading between the lines. Everything was always kind of fuzzy for him on the unemployment numbers in Pocatello. Hello. Did he do anything to entice them to stay? Did he meet with Heinz at all? This wasn't an over night decision and it is a very hard hit to Pocatello.
And so the Blad legacy begins......
IrishEyes -- Yes because Blad ran Heinz out of Pocatello.... Care to share how you know this, or how you concluded this? I'll give you credit that you didn't outright say Blad did this, but it sure appears that way from your post.
Welcome to the discussion.
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