Kraft Foods Plant Shutdown MY TAKE

The following consists 100% of my opinion. This may not be factual in content other then from my own prospective

Back in 1972 when Kraft foods first opened the Fogelsville plant there was large disagreement among board members who were strongly opposed. Rumors where there were board members who were concerned Kraft was putting too many eggs in one basket. After all it was to the second largest production facility ever outside of Champaign. The Lehigh Valley plant began packaging all of Kraft's varieties of sliced natural cut cheeses. These included Cracker Barrel stick lines and wedges.


The processed cheese department used the left over pieces from the natural cuts department to produce it's Deluxe, Single Slices and Velveeta loafs. Another department produced Parkay sticks, squeeze containers and it's whipped margarines cups. The Salads Department produced Miracle Whip, Mayo and all the pourable dressings. All of these supplied these product lines everything East of the Mississippi.

All and all 100's of tractor trailers daily would come and go transporting supplies into the plant as well as finished product. Literally 100's of tons per hour were produced in Fogelsville. The building itself held about 20 rail cars under roof. There were five huge receiving coolers and even two larger ones in distribution and one 10 below freezer. Three cafeteria break areas with hot food. Almost a city unto itself.

The bloom came off the rose when the union came in and took the plant out on strike for six months after a few short years of the plant's opening. This gave ammo to the board directors who were against the plant before it was even put to paper. Because of it a blow was suffered that it never quite recovered from. Although I have no way of knowing I suspect any future plans presented were met with skepticism at the top in it's Chicago headquarters. Much of what was allowed I figure was balanced with the fact they had so much invested in the building and it's production dependency it would be unwise to pull the plug and a let's make the best of it attitude was adopted.

Still there were those who I felt set us up to fail. One example was Champaign was our largest competitor for production of mayo. It was they who got brand new CP equipment to produce the product. Again this is only my opinion and what I heard... supposedly that new equipment would enable them to overtake our facility. Turns out they shot themselves in the foot. Every time they fired it up all they got was broken emulsions. (CP's are similar to blenders that mix eggs and the base ingredients to form the final a viscous product). Frustrated they crated up two of them and sent them to the Lehigh Valley figuring we'd get hamstrung with them. Instead we made them work. What the hell! They sent teams several times to Lehigh Valley to see what we were doing and every time they went back to Champaign they couldn't get theirs to work.

Another example was new equipment to manufacture process cheese slices. These were called Hot Packs. From what I was told they weren't meant for us. However it turned out we were the only plant who had enough refrigeration capacity to run them without spending a couple of million more somewhere else to upgrade their refrigeration. Again I'm not sure how cheerleaders for our demise felt. Our other competitor an older plant in Decatur Georgia got zapped with bad labor and a number of recalls. The plant was closed and were able to pick up some of their production only because of our size and capability having no place else to go with their stuff.

Over the years Kraft sold off it's Parkay margarine. There was less demand for salad products. Kraft bought up A1 and Grey Poupon and since we had two large empty production areas this where they put them. Eventually they took out the process cheese department and replaced it with the coffee lines. There's lots more to discuss but trying to encapsulate my 33 years with Kraft would require way too much explanation to fit here.

My Overall Synopsis
There are a number of factors for this plant's closing (1) Companies today really do more so today then yesterday not like having too may eggs in one basket. (2) They don't like owning large buildings tending rather to lease. (3) Selling owned buildings is like cashing in on static assets which no longer produce tax advantages . (4) The longer a plant stays open the more it costs in aging workers benefits and pensions. (4) Corporations' loyalties today lean far greater towards it's investors then community or it's workers.

It's been my experience management was more concerned about themselves and their careers over Kraft Lehigh Valley plant's success. Generally speaking us grunts were more concerned knowing this plant existence depended on it's efficiency and profitability if we were to have a job 10 years down the road. Management on the other hand usually came from some other plant on their way to somewhere else. In short we were in for the long haul. They were not.


My Message To Those Who About To Lose Your Jobs
My thoughts go out to you knowing the history of this production facility I've seen automation replace hundreds of jobs. I've seen workers asked more of them over fears of this happening. I've seen entire product lines come and go due to no fault of those who worked on them. To you I say there is nothing you could have done. If there's a fault in which to place blame it is on those fail to realize greater profits don't necessarily have to be made in simply rearranging the deck chairs every few years. Closing Kraft Lehigh Valley (it seems to me) was someone's idea of making a change so as to look like something was being accomplished by some new latest and greatest management team.

With five coolers, rail services, a huge warehouse, endless truck docks and it's location in the Northeast corridor along with it's access to a huge labor pool who've struck down labor unions three times somebody(s) got this wrong to the determent of Kraft-Heinz itself.

You know what this also says to me. There's no point in anyone caring nor working hard. I once had a Kraft supervisor say at a meeting (he was with them for 30 years). We paid you for today's labor. We're even. We're not your mother or brother. The company owes you nothing beyond that. Might be harsh but turns out he was right!