Fulton city lawmakers will soon be asked to provide significant taxpayer-funded breaks to lure a company into the closed Birds-Eye food processing plant, according to Fulton’s Mayor.
Ron Woodward said this week that a company is deep into negotiations to buy the Phillips St. plant and bring back a food processing operation.
UPDATED with comments from Assemblyman Will Barclay and Senator Patty Ritchie. After more than 100 years in Fulton, the Birds Eye Foods plant will cease to exist at the end of the year. Plant officials announced this morning (April 15) that the facility will close its doors for good in December. Employees got the news at a meeting at the Fulton War Memorial.
Blackstone Group will close the Rochester headquarters of Birds Eye Foods, the company it acquired, according to a job-loss notice the company filed with the state Labor Department.
It’s been a mainstay in Fulton for years, and Sen. Charles Schumer today (Jan. 11) told workers at the Birds Eye plant that he’d do everything he could to make sure it stays that way. There has been no indication one way or the other what the new owner’s plans might be, according to Eduardo Jofre, business representative for Local 1822 of Workers United at the Fulton plant.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer is expected in Fulton Monday afternoon to hold a rally with workers at the Birds Eye plant.
The food processing plant’s future is uncertain after Birds Eye was sold to Pinnacle Foods, which is, in turn, owned by an investment company, Blackstone Group.
The world’s biggest private equity company has completed its purchase of Birds Eye Foods, including the Birds Eye Fulton plant. The sale to Blackstone Group‘s Pinnacle Foods Group cost $1.3 billion. The fate of the Fulton plant or its seven other food processing factories is not known.
The company that changed the way America eats is being sold.
Birds Eye Foods, which employs about 250 people at its plant in Fulton at last word, is being bought by Blackstone Group LP’s Pinnacle Foods Group for $1.3 billion.
Birds Eye Foods in Fulton recently presented Catholic Charities of Oswego County with a check in support of the agency’s food pantry. Each year the food pantry at Catholic Charities of Oswego County feeds thousands of families and distributes hundreds of Thanksgiving and Christmas food baskets to those in need.
All Content Copyright Dot Publishing 2024. All Submissions Become Property of Dot Publishing All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.