Dean Foods to close Meadow Gold dairy in Greeley, cutting 82 jobs

GREELEY — Southern Foods Group LLC, doing business as Dean Foods Co. (NYSE: DF), will permanently close the Meadow Gold Dairy in Greeley, cutting 82 jobs.

The company filed a WARN notice Monday with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment informing it of the closure. WARN stands for the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act, which requires that employers meeting certain thresholds provide at least 60 days written notice of layoffs.

“This is to inform you that Southern Foods Group, LLC plans to affect a plant closure at its facility located at 450 25th Street, Greeley, Colorado,” the letter stated.

“Due to both unforeseeable business circumstances and the impending sale of this property through Chapter 11, the entire plant will be closed.”

Dallas-based Dean Foods filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November in the Southern District of Texas. The WARN letter stated that the Greeley plant was shut down the week of Feb. 10 in response to an Interstate Milk Shippers inspection and “will be required to incur substantial costs to comply with the IMS findings and Waste Water Treatment upgrades, at a time when funding is limited due to our Chapter 11 proceedings.”

The company said the Greeley layoffs would begin March 13, with the entire plant closed sometime between April 10 and April 24.

Dean Foods also announced that agricultural cooperative Dairy Farmers of America had agreed to acquire a substantial part of Dean Foods for $425 million. The deal would include 44 of Dean’s plants and is subject to approval by the bankruptcy court.

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