Mission Foods closing Pueblo plant

PUEBLO — Mission Foods will close its tortilla-production facility in Pueblo, eliminating 90 jobs.

The company, based in Irving, Texas, announced the closure in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act filing with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment on Friday. Mission Foods will close the facility at 2110 Santa Fe Drive on Oct. 13, with the employee separations completed by Oct. 27.

“The entire facility will be closed and all employees at the facility will be impacted,” the company wrote.

Some of the workers are represented by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7. Union officials, in a press release, said workers were informed on Friday that operations would cease immediately.

“On Friday, with no advance warning to workers or the union, corporate executives from Mission Foods came to Pueblo to tell approximately 100 workers that the Company’s Pueblo plant would cease to operate effective immediately,” according to the statement. “Workers, some of whom have been at the plant for more than 4 decades were told to immediately pack their things and leave, with production having ceased. Long-time workers were shocked by the suddenness of the news, with some in tears and others angered at the decision.”

Mission Foods is a subsidiary of Mexican corporation Gruma S.A. 

“Mission Foods should have done better by its workers,” Kim Cordova, president of UFCW Local 7, said in a written statement. “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. Not only is this closure tragic for our Local 7 members, but also for the entire Pueblo community. Sadly, this is yet another case of billionaires choosing to line their pockets rather than nourish the communities they serve.”

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