Archibald Candy Corp. on Monday announced it will sell its Fannie May and Fanny Farmer stores and shut down its West Loop factory–putting 625 employees out of work and ending more than 80 years of tradition.
After a meeting with leaders of its five unions on Monday, the company issued a statement that it is in “final negotiations” with an unnamed buyer for its candy businesses.
The new owner is expected to manufacture Fannie May and Fanny Farmer sweets elsewhere and continue to sell candy under the brand name, Archibald spokesman Ron Bottrell said.
While a deal is expected soon for the company’s 250 Fannie May and Fanny Farmer stores, no buyer could be found for the aging, 1930s-era plant at 1137 W. Jackson Blvd. Archibald, parent of the two Chicago-based icons, is expected to stop manufacturing candy there by Jan. 17, eliminating nearly 500 jobs in the factory and roughly 125 office positions.
“Regardless of who the eventual new owner is, the Chicago manufacturing facility will cease production and be closed,” Bottrell said Monday.
Rick Anglin, Archibald’s chief financial officer, said the 70-year-old manufacturing, distribution and office facility was just “not viable for cost-competitive production.”
Employees shuffling out of the factory at the afternoon shift change were stunned but not surprised by the announcement.
In fact, Monday’s statement confirmed some fears that prompted about 100 worried workers to gather with signs outside Chicago’s City Hall on Dec. 30 to draw attention to a possible shutdown.
Workers also circulated a budget-forecasting memo they said was found on a desk at the West Loop headquarters outlining plans for the company to file its second bankruptcy petition in two years and shut down the factory Jan. 17.
No comment on bankruptcy
The company declined to comment on the memo or on a possible bankruptcy.
Union members who attended a midmorning meeting with company representatives on Monday said talks focused on the sale of the Chicago-based company. The company is expected to retain its Canadian Laura Secord division.
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“They confirmed they have a buyer and the buyer has made it clear that he does not want to do business in the U.S.,” said Charles Bridgemon, director of the industrial division of Local 1 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents cashiers in the company’s more than 250 retail stores.
Bridgemon said the unions are convinced the company still intends to file for bankruptcy, a charge that employees made at a rally last week.
“We’re concerned that they are not telling us everything,” he said.
Bridgemon said that the company has stockpiled enough candy to last about eight months while it continues negotiating the sale of the brand name and the retail stores.
He said the decision to shutter the West Side plant wasn’t that surprising “because we have known they were in trouble for a long time,” he said. “But we were surprised they were letting us know at the last minute.”
Beyond surprise, other workers were emotional about the news.
“I want to start to cry,” said Maria Littlejohn, 55, a candy packer who has worked for Archibald for 29 years. Though she has 17-year-old and 12-year-old sons, she said she may opt to join her husband in retirement.
“I am feeling too old to start my life over,” she said.
Under federal labor laws, employers are required to give workers eight weeks’ notice of a planned shutdown.
Brian Rainville, a spokesman for the Teamsters union which represents production workers and truck drivers, said the company still will be required to comply with the eight-week notice provisions of the Warren Act, a federal plant closing law.
In addition, he said the union expects that the company will live up to the terms of its union contract that promises workers one week’s pay for each year of service.
Fannie May has many employees with 30-plus years of service. For some, working at Fannie May had been their first and only job.
Barbara Klucznik, 57, has worked in the company’s administrative offices for 34 years.
“They’ve been a good company to work for. I wouldn’t have stayed that long if they weren’t. I guess the economy just wasn’t the best for them,” Klucznik said, adding that she’s not sure what’s next for her. “I guess I’ll look for work. What else can you do? … I don’t have a college degree, so I don’t know who’ll hire me. … You do the best you can.”
While production workers learned their fate on Monday, office workers said they had not been notified of their fate.
“We’re still walking on eggshells, trying to figure out if we are going to close. We’ve heard it … but we don’t know,” said Karen Sanders, a data-processing employee who has worked for Archibald for five years.
A series of setbacks
The shutdown of the Fannie May and Fanny Farmer production line is the latest blow to Chicago’s image as a center for candymaking.
Brach’s Confections Inc., founded in 1904, completed the shutdown its West Side plant last week, laying off the last of what was once more than 3,500 employees. Its Zurich-based parent company, Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest merchant of wholesale chocolate, has moved production to Mexico.
Prior to that, Marshall Field’s moved production of Frango mint chocolates to Pennsylvania.
Still, Peter Scales, a spokesman for the city, said Chicago still is the candymaking capital of the world.
“There still are more than 100 confectioners and candymakers in town and they have a $4 billion impact on the city economy,” he said.
Candy capital or not, Ana Cervantes, 52, of Berwyn, a single mother of twin 16-year-old daughters who also packs candy for Archibald, was distraught at the closing.
“I don’t know what I am going to do. We are going to have to start all over again. … It is like a dream gone,” she said.