Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo SA has closed a bakery on the county line in La Mirada as part of a consolidation of its California production.
Bimbo Bakeries USA, the Fort Worth, Texas-based U.S. arm of Mexico City’s Grupo Bimbo, moved production from La Mirada to Montebello and Escondido, according to Chris Botticella, vice president of West Coast operations.
“In today’s highly competitive environment, our goal is to focus production in our most modern facilities,” Botticella said in a statement. “Our customers will see no change in the quality of our products or the high level of service we are committed to providing.”
Roughly a third of the La Mirada plant’s 130 workers took production and delivery truck jobs at other plants. The rest of the workers were laid off.
The plant is on Buena Park’s border with La Mirada on Valley View Street near the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway.
Bimbo’s other regional plants had capacity to produce bread and buns that were made in La Mirada, Bimbo spokesman David Margulies said.
“It was the only Bimbo plant closed this year,” he said. “It’s gone quietly.”
The facility in La Mirada was leased, and it made sense to move production to modern plants, Margulies said.
The plant made products under the Oroweat, Old Country, Weber’s and Milton’s names. The brands were picked up in recent acquisitions as part of Bimbo’s push into the U.S.
The company’s Bimbo and Marinela brands are favorites in Mexico and among Hispanics here. The Bimbo name comes from a shortened version of “bambino,” Spanish for “small child.”
Four years ago, Bimbo closed a 1920s-era Los Angeles bakery and shifted jobs to La Mirada and Escondido.
Andrea Travis, city manager of La Mirada, said the plant closing is the latest in a rash of hits to the area in the past year or so.
“We received notice that they planned to do the layoffs, but it was an internal decision,” Travis said. “We are concerned about this.”
Philadelphia-based Crown Holdings Inc., a maker of cans, caps and other packaging, recently closed a La Mirada plant, Travis said.
And Kraft Foods Inc.’s shuttering Nabisco cracker and cookie plant in Buena Park is just a few blocks from Bimbo’s plant, where operations wound down about six weeks ago.
In an April conference call with analysts, Grupo Bimbo Chief Executive Daniel Servitje said the company was taking a one-time quarterly charge of $1.6 million to close the La Mirada plant.
Bimbo’s industry is in the midst of consolidation.
Last year, Bimbo rival Interstate Bakeries Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection. Last month, Interstate shut down its only two bakeries in San Francisco, laying off 650 people.
Interstate also is consolidating delivery routes from Bakersfield to the Mexican border.
The move is expected to affect 350 workers.
“There will be some cutbacks in Orange County, but it won’t be significant,” an Interstate spokesman said.
