Fullerton-based Tam Produce Inc. has closed its repacking plant after union contract talks broke down.
The move resulted in 87 job cuts. The company, which was one of the state’s largest tomato packagers, plans to keep a staff of five to operate a tomato brokerage operation.
The company said it closed the packing unit after two and a half months of talking with the Teamsters union, Tam President Sam Licato said.
“We really didn’t want to close the business,” Licato said. “It got to the point where we weren’t competitive.”
Competition from Mexico, plus the grocery strike, hit the company in the past few years.
Tam asked the union for concessions on healthcare, retirement, sick leave and holiday pay, Licato said. Tam wanted to limit medical coverage to workers only.
The union said Tam was struggling and concessions would have kept the doors open another 18 months at most, according to Jesus Gonzalez, executive coordinator of Teamsters Local 630 in Los Angeles.
Tam workers wouldn’t have been the only ones to be hurt by concessions, Gonzalez said.
“If we gave concessions to Tam, 32 companies would be knocking on my door wanting the same thing,” he said.
Tam workers were making $6 to $8 an hour, Gonzalez said. After considering a final proposal, he said they decided to look for work elsewhere. Employees were given 60 days notice.
Kay Miller, Fullerton’s economic development manager, said she was disappointed by the closure.
“They were great to have in our community,” she said.
Tam sponsored some city events such as the Fourth of July a few years ago, she said.
Tam got its start in Orange County in 1994, when it moved from Los Angeles to a much larger warehouse in Fullerton. The company was founded in the early 1980s.
Tam leased a 98,000-square-foot warehouse on Hale Street. Miller said she’d like to see a company move in that could take advantage of existing gear used in ripening rooms and other operations.
But the city is open to other warehouse and distribution companies, Miller said. Prior to Tam, the California Almond Growers Association used the building.
Tam is part of Arlington, Texas-based DiMare Fresh Inc., which has a slew of units in California, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Texas.
DiMare bought Tam in 1999, along with Continental Tomato Packers in Sacramento. Continental still is open.
In 1999, Tam shipped 250,000 boxes of tomatoes from its Fullerton plant, according to a report in the Orange County Register. The company’s operations included ripening, washing, sorting and bundling tomatoes for supermarkets and other retailers.
Licato said the company plans to expand Tam Brokerage, which now sells tomatoes to repacking companies,what Tam used to be,and independent stores, among others.
Tam gets its tomatoes mainly from Mexico in the winter. During the rest of the year, tomatoes mainly come from California and Florida. It also packages some from Virginia, Maryland and Tennessee.
The domestic tomato business has suffered in the past few years with the grocers’ strike and freer trade, which made it harder for U.S. growers to compete with Mexico’s cheaper tomatoes.
During last year’s grocery workers’ strike, Tam’s sales fell 80%, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. The company laid off about 35 employees of what was then a 140-worker staff.
Overall tomato sales have been strong since the strike, in part because of nutritional education campaigns.
