Birds Eye restructuring; Brockport, Bergen and Oakfield sites affected

Birds Eye restructuring;
Brockport, Bergen and Oakfield sites affected

On Tuesday, July 25, Birds Eye Foods Inc. announced plans for a restructuring through the sale or closure of six production plants nationwide by June 2007. The results of the divestiture total roughly $200 million in net sales, and an exiting of about 1,400 workers - nearly half of all those currently employed by the company.

Three of the six plants affected by this decision are in Western New York, in Brockport, Bergen and Oakfield. The Brockport plant employs 293 full-time workers.

The administrative offices in Linden Oaks, Penfield, will remain open, though they also stand to lose 75 workers, according to published reports.

In a press release, CEO Neil Harrison stated: "We believe there is tremendous potential and trust in the Birds Eye brand and our other brands that we have yet to tap fully."

Following the announcement, Brockport Mayor Mort Wexler issued an optimistic statement.

"News of this type is not cause to lament one company leaving," said Wexler, "but, rather, it presents a recruitment opportunity to show a prospective company what Brockport has to offer."

According to local historian Bill Andrews, the history of frozen foods in Brockport dates back to the inception of the Brockport Cold Storage Plant at the turn of the 20th century - only the second to be built in the world.

"In the late 1930s," Andrews notes, "Clarence Birdseye conducted pioneering deep-freeze food-preserving experiments there."

Almost 40 years later, Birds Eye Foods Inc., by then a stable yet still growing company, purchased that same plant from then owner ConAgra.

Brockport Village Manager Ian Coyle shares the mayor's optimism that the plant will see a smooth transition into new hands.

"Let's not just try to keep the status quo, let's try to enhance it," says Coyle. "That's the goal of the Village of Brockport."

Coyle takes an active interest in the economic development of Brockport, and assures that the village will do its best to assist in the marketing of the property. This means offering all the pertinent information to prospective buyers, including tax incentives, assessed value and population statistics.

One incentive that Coyle stresses is the location of the plant within an Empire Zone (EZ). An Empire Zone, according to the Empire State Development website, is a designated area that offers incentives such as tax credits and benefits to encourage economic and community development.

"We have a strong commitment to that workforce to maintain that facility as a thriving production site," says Coyle. "And as someone interested in the economic development of Brockport, I'm looking at that glass half-full."

Birds Eye had already received unsolicited inquiries about the property before the announcement, according to Coyle, and has continued to receive solicited proposals since.

Pro-Fac Cooperative Inc., a farmers collective, is another group affected both locally and nationally by the restructuring.

The cooperative has 243 members - of a total 490 nationwide - based in Western New York. About 152 of them supply the raw vegetable products (peas, sweet corn, snap beans and carrots) to the local Birds Eye plants. Pro-Fac is also a minority shareholder at Birds Eye with 40 percent of the stock.

"The effect is two-fold," says Kevin Murphy, spokesman for Pro-Fac. "As a minority shareholder, any move that Birds Eye makes to strengthen themselves is welcomed. But as for the farmers themselves, we want to maintain the markets for their raw product."

The Pro-Fac Board of Directors will be meeting with the farmers in the near future to decide what steps they will take to achieve their goals.