Local bakery to close

BLUEFIELD — More than 160 employees of a local bakery were informed Tuesday that their facility was ending its operations by the end of the week.

Flowers Baking Co., of West Virginia, which operates near Route 52, will cease operations on March 5, Robbie Watkins, the company’s president announced in an e-mail. The closing will affect 164 employees.

Employees will receive pay and benefits through April 20 as well as “a competitive severance package,” company officials said. The bakery will negotiate with the union on the severance; employees not covered by the bargaining agreement will receive a separate severance package.

“Closing the bakery was a very difficult decision. We know it affects people and their families and we have been a part of the Bluefield community for a long time,” Watkins said in the announcement. “We will work with outside agencies to provide employees with job counseling and other assistance.”

Watkins said the bakery’s equipment is outdated.

“Replacing the equipment cannot produce the volume needed to be efficient,” he said. “Our facility simply doesn’t have the space to accommodate new equipment. We would literally have to rebuild this bakery from the ground up. We cannot justify that very large capital expense given the size of this market and its very slow growth rate.”

Flowers Bakery operates two discount stores, one in Bluefield and another in Princeton. Watkins told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph that both stores will stay open, and customers should not notice any difference.

“Actually, we only produce 25 percent of what we sell in our area,” he said. “Our sales area will be divided up between four bakeries.”

Flowers Bakery purchased the Bluefield facility from the Purity company in 1981. It was built during the 1940s, Watkins said. The building will be sold after salvageable equipment is removed.

Off-duty Bluefield police officers were at the Bluefield bakery Tuesday. They had been hired to provide security.

“It’s really just a safety precaution,” Watkins said. “Usually we’re here 24/7. They’re just going to be here through the weekend.”

Employees who spoke to the Daily Telegraph Tuesday said the announcement was a surprise.

“I’ve been there for 14 years,” said 44-year-old James Jennings of Montcalm, who drives a tractor-trailer for the company. “I actually was sitting in the doctor’s office when somebody said, ‘Did you hear the rumor?’”

Jennings said he called a company supervisor and learned that the rumor was true. He added that he had no prior notice before Tuesday’s announcement.

“No. Nothing. I was getting ready to buy my wife a new vehicle, so it’s a good thing I didn’t,” Jennings said.

“If they had given some kind of notice, we could have been job hunting; instead, they pulled it out all at once. There are some of them who have worked there for years.”

Another employee, Ricky Poore, 41, of Montcalm said he started working at Flowers Bakery in June 2000. He was a bun mixer operator.

“One minute you’ve got a job, the next minute you don’t know,” he said.

Poore said that he and other employees had a meeting with company officials 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and heard that the bakery was closing due to outdated equipment.

“You can ask anybody here. Whether it’s fast production or slow production, Bluefield bakery makes the best loaf of bread in the industry. We wasn’t worried about the quantity as much as we were the quality. We wanted to make sure the bread was ready for tomorrow and people would eat it.”

Poore said he had some job offers.

“I’ll end up going back to coal mines, but I’m going to take a couple of weeks off and make up for some lost family time. I was always on the night shift, and I’d start at 1 a.m. You never worked at the same time. We went in and run it until it was done. It might be two hours or 18 hours. I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss the bakery, but life goes on.”

The Bluefield area has few companies that employ as many people as the bakery, said Mayor Linda Whalen.

“Well, this is very sad,” she said.

“I personally know people who are employed at the bakery. It’s very sad for people individually and for our own area. I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t there and I’ve lived in Bluefield all my life.”

Whalen said she hoped other local businesses would consider hiring the former Flowers workers.`

“We hear employers in the area often state that they have vacancies that they are unable to fill, and we hope some of the Flowers employees will be able to fill those spots because they are obviously very employable people,” Whalen said. “We’d like to keep as many people in the area as possible.”

Janet Bailey, executive director for the Development Authority of Mercer County, said the state agency Work Force West Virginia has sent a “rapid response team” to help the Flowers employees try to find other positions and job opportunities.

Bailey said that her office nor the state were contacted by Flowers about the closure. Members of the development authority spoke to company officials last year during a visit to the Flowers facility, and there was no mention of closing the bakery.

“They probably didn’t know if there was going to be a closure,” she said.

“It’s going to be a tremendous loss,” said Joe Coburn, president of the Mercer County Commission.

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