Bakery in Hazelton, PA closing

It's true. It shouldn't affect me much for now. The bread will still be made and delivered from other bakeries. The only thing that might change is I'll be picking up more bread from the bakery in Breinigsville, and the cake loads won't be affected at all.

 

In my opinion...now this is just a guess... it's probably because of Bimbo's Brenigsville plant.

Ever since they opened that plant around 5 years ago...from what I heard, it was suppose to be the new major distribution center for the NE...which meant consolidating operations...which also meant closing down other smaller distribution centers, absorbing and running all operations out of Brenigsville. That plant was suppose to be the bigger, better, updated and more productive distribution center that they have now with the lastest state of the art technology. And with so many smaller, less productive, outdated distribution centers that were literally an hour or less apart from each other, they started closing down the smaller bakeries and consolidated all operations to run out of Brenigsville. First Bimbo's Norristown Stroehman plant closed down. Then Easton. Then Harrisburg. And probably a couple more that I can't think of off the top of my head...all within 1-2 years after Brenigsville was built. It doesn't surprise me that they plan on closing Hazleton now too.

I was told from a Stroehman driver years ago, when Bimbo bought them out in 2009, that the owners (Grupo Bimbo) mentioned that they were not a trucking company, just a bakery business. They soon got rid of some of their private fleets...like Stroehman...and started using companies like Grocery Haulers and NFI to handle the trucking aspect. Grocery Haulers use to be Pathmark and Superfresh's trucking fleet, before they both went under and are now owned by ACME. They now do Bimbo Bakeries and Baker's Express and took over their private fleet around 2013-2014.

You don't see Stroehman trucks around anymore. I don't think Entehmans have them either. It's all handled by outside carriers and owner operators now.

 

AW.

I consider bakeries and related facilities to be among the most valued. There is one in Baltimore, a small retail opertation on route 143 downtown called Fenwick. (They are on google) but you need to be very careful putting up the 18 wheeler in the nearby shopping center in off peak hours.

If we start losing too many of these bakeries etc then we stand to lose a little something in our bodies and ability to get through the workday.

 

Even as Bimbo closes bakeries, product availability won't be affected. Expanding Production will simply happen at other bakeries. Drivers will simply pick up at other locations.