Mission Foods closes Pueblo tortilla plant, laying off 90 workers

PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) -- Mission Foods has closed its Pueblo tortilla plant, laying off 90 unionized workers, according to Colorado's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act page.

Corporate executives with Mission Foods arrived at the plant Friday and informed workers that operations would cease immediately, according to United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7. The union said workers received no advance warning and were told to pack their belongings and leave as production stopped.

Officials say some employees had worked at the Pueblo facility for more than four decades. The sudden closure left longtime workers shocked and emotional, the union said.

The Pueblo plant was founded in the late 1950s as Candy’s Tortilla Factory by Candelario “Candy” Estrada. Mission Foods purchased the facility in 1994, according to the union.

“Mission Foods should have done better by its workers,” UFCW Local 7 President Kim Cordova said.

Cordova said the closure was the result of what she described as years of underinvestment in the Pueblo facility.

“This closure was the natural result of years of chronic underinvestment in the Pueblo facility, and is a consequence of Mission Foods’ decisions to routinely put profit ahead of its people,” Cordova said.

Cordova said the closure will affect not only the workers represented by Local 7, but the broader Pueblo community.

“Local 7 will do everything in our power, including working closely with our government and community allies and the Southern Colorado Labor Council to provide workers with the resources necessary to work through this transition,” she said.

Mission Foods Regional Director of Manufacturing released the following statement to KRDO13:

"We recently made the difficult decision to fully close our Pueblo manufacturing facility effective Friday, October 13. We’re deeply grateful to our employees and are supporting them as they transition to the next step in their careers. While manufacturing operations ceased on August 14, affected employees will continue to receive pay and benefits through the facility's closure date.

Mission Foods has been part of the Pueblo community since purchasing the manufacturing facility in 1995. We’ll continue to be a proud and supportive part of the region with our distribution centers in Pueblo and Denver. We’re encouraging all employees who have been affected by the plant closure and would like to continue working with our company to apply to open opportunities on our website."

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