SSE Manufacturing Will Close 2 Plants, Costing O.C. 450 Jobs
SSE Manufacturing Inc. said Friday it will close its two pizza manufacturing plants in Santa Ana by October to consolidate the operations with a site in Kansas.
Some of the 450 employees in Santa Ana will be offered jobs in Kansas, spokesman Bob Otterson said, but he did not say how many.
The news came as a blow to the city, which also learned this week that Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro Inc. will cut 10% of its worldwide work force, including an undisclosed number of jobs in Orange County.
A city official compared the planned closure of SSE to the announcement two years ago by Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics that it was closing its television assembly plant to move to Mexicali, idling 380 workers.
“It’s a large layoff for us,” said Deborah Sanchez, coordinator of a city program that will help the displaced workers find jobs.
The company is closing the plants, which are about 4 miles apart, because neither site is large enough to handle the entire pizza-making process. The pizzas are baked at one site and trucked to the other so the topping can be applied, an inefficient process, Otterson said.
The operations will be consolidated with another pizza-making plant in Salina, Kan., he said.
Employees learned of the closure Thursday. Some of them have worked at the main plant near Dyer Road and Main Street since before SSE bought it from Sabatasso Foods in 1986, Otterson said.
Representatives from the city were at the plant Thursday when the news was announced, Sanchez said.
Employees are “worried and upset,” she said. “It was something that wasn’t necessarily anticipated. This kind of news is rarely taken in stride.”
Otterson said the news brought “mixed reactions” from employees.
“But I don’t think anyone was shocked,” he said. “They know we have to run trucks between two buildings and they know there’s no room for expansion. . . . That doesn’t make the decision any easier.”
Rep. Loretta Sanchez, the Garden Grove Democrat whose district includes Santa Ana, said Friday she has asked labor officials to provide federal assistance to SSE’s displaced workers.
SSE is a division of Minnesota-based Schwan’s Sales Enterprises, which makes and distributes a variety of frozen foods. Founded in 1952, the company originally sold ice cream in neighborhoods, like milk delivery firms, Otterson said.
In the 1960s, the company began making new products, including frozen sandwiches and pizzas.
Today, Schwan’s Sales is the nation’s largest frozen pizza manufacturer, Otterson said. The products are sold to a variety of sources, including businesses, schools, hospitals and retail outlets.
The company also has six other manufacturing facilities nationwide, including a smaller operation in San Diego, which Otterson said will not be affected by the consolidation.
