Northern California-based restaurant chain Il Fornaio Corp. has leased Bimbo Bakeries USA’s former plant just over the county line in La Mirada.
Il Fornaio plans to expand its wholesale bakery business in Southern California with the lease.
“We outgrew our Gardena bakery,” said Michael Mindel, vice president of marketing for Corte Madera-based Il Fornaio.
Il Fornaio is an Italian restaurant chain with 23 eateries in California, Colorado, Nevada and Washington state. The company also has three bakeries that produce breads and other products for its restaurants, other eateries and accounts. The other bakeries are in the Bay area’s Burlingame and Denver.
Il Fornaio recently signed a lease for the 60,000-square-foot plant in La Mirada with owner Barsky Family LP of La Jolla.
“We are moving everybody and everything,” Mindel said of the company’s plans to shift bread-baking production to La Mirada from Gardena. “It’ll take the better part of 2006 to move.”
The La Mirada bakery will have 50 workers, he said.
|
|
Il Fornaio in Irvine: company expanding bakery operations in La Mirada |
Il Fornaio operates several restaurants in Southern California, including its popular business lunch eatery in Irvine just west of the San Diego (I-405) Freeway on Von Karman Avenue.
The La Mirada bakery is expected to cook a variety of Italian breads, pastries, cakes and cookies for Il Fornaio’s restaurants in the region.
Last year, Mexico’s Grupo Bimbo SA closed the La Mirada bakery 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 plants in Montebello and Escondido.
Roughly a third of Bimbo’s 130 workers in La Mirada took production and delivery truck jobs at other plants.
Others 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.
The plant made products under Bimbo’s 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.
“It was somewhat tricky to find an old bakery. We’re just thrilled to have found it,” Mindel said.
The Il Fornaio takeover of the plant is significant for the area because it reverses a rash of plant closings to hit the La Mirada area in the past few years.
Philadelphia-based Crown Holdings Inc., a maker of cans, caps and other packaging, recently closed a La Mirada plant.
And Kraft Foods Inc.’s shuttered Nabisco cracker and cookie plant in Buena Park is just a few blocks from Bimbo’s plant, where operations wound down last spring.
The bakery industry is in the midst of consolidation.
In 2004, Bimbo rival Interstate Bakeries Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection. In June, 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, including Orange County.
