Flowers Foods to shut Bailey Street Bakery

ATLANTA — Next month, Flowers Foods Inc. plans to shut down its Bailey Street Bakery LLC subsidiary in Atlanta as part of efforts to sharpen its supply chain.

Plans call for Bailey Street Bakery to permanently discontinue all manufacturing operations on April 16, at which time 176 Flowers and temporary employees will be terminated, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed Feb. 12 in Georgia. The facility makes a range of bread products for the retail and foodservice channels.

In the WARN letter, Bailey Street Bakery plant manager Joel Wood said the planned closing is “due to continued efforts to maximize production capacity throughout the network of Flowers bakeries and the ability of other Flowers bakeries to assume the current Bailey Street operations.”

The workers being laid off include 120 Flowers employees and 56 temporary staff employed by Aramark and assigned to Flowers, the WARN notice said. A handful of employees will remain at the plant through May 9 to complete the winding down of operations.

Slated to remain open on the Bailey Street Bakery property is a retail store selling discounted baked foods under Flowers brands such as Tastykake and Nature’s Own, which will be served by other area bakeries, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported.

In a Feb. 7 webcast to report fiscal 2024 results, A. Ryals McMullian, chairman and chief executive officer of Flowers, cited margin improvement as a “strategic priority” and pointed to more operational efficiencies as key to that effort.

“To further boost margins, we are focused on optimizing our supply chain to provide the highest level of service to our customers in the most cost-efficient manner,” McMullian said. “Initiatives range from reducing production scrap, improving manufacturing efficiencies, optimizing our transportation network, and rightsizing our transportation equipment base.”

Overall, Flowers operates 45 bakeries, which produce brands such as Nature’s Own, Dave’s Killer Bread, Canyon Bakehouse, Wonder, Tastykake and Simple Mills.