Amy’s Kitchen Closes the Santa Rosa Plant After Years of Cuts

Amy’s Kitchen will close its Santa Rosa, California factory, a move that cuts around 260 manufacturing jobs and ends the company’s California production after 39 years. Work shifts in phases to plants in Medford, Oregon, and Pocatello, Idaho. Corporate headquarters stays in Petaluma, where Andy and Rachel Berliner started the organic meals business in 1987.

The company confirmed the plan on September 17, 2026. CEO Paul Schiefer said the manufacturing network had grown more complex than the business needs, and that each remaining plant will stick to the foods it already makes best.

Amy’s Kitchen Will Close the Santa Rosa Plant

Santa Rosa, at 2330 Northpoint Parkway, once carried the whole kitchen. The company now says that site makes only a small share of total output. Manufacturing will wind down in two stages, with the first jobs going at the end of 2026 and a second round by summer 2027.

About 207 of the cuts are in Santa Rosa. About 51 more sit in the canning rooms at Pocatello, where that work moves to Medford. Pocatello becomes the designated entree plant. Medford will specialize in pizza, soup, and burritos, and will take on the cans.

Affected staff will get separation packages, help finding other work, and counseling through the employee assistance program, the company said. Managers will stay on site to walk people through the next steps. “These decisions were not made lightly, and they are not a reflection of the dedication of the people affected,” the company said.

207 Jobs in California and 51 in Idaho

The two remaining factories are much larger than the California building they will absorb. Medford was built from scratch. Pocatello is a former Heinz plant that Amy’s took over to add volume in the West.

WHERE THE WORK GOES NOW

Pocatello Mayor Mark Dahlquist said he spoke with local managers after the notice landed. He put the Idaho plant at 750 to 800 people and said the rest of that crew stays. “Although this is disappointing news, Amy’s will remain a strong and viable employer for the Pocatello area,” he said. He also said an engineering firm is already on upgrades there.

The Intern Who Now Runs the Company

This is hard and it should be hard. We looked at every alternative before landing here. We have a loyal workforce in Santa Rosa and we’re incredibly grateful for everything they’ve contributed. We know this decision has a very real impact on people we value.

Paul Schiefer, CEO, Amy’s Kitchen

Schiefer became CEO on April 22, 2026, after three years as president. Co-founder Andy Berliner moved to executive chairman. Rachel Berliner remains on the board and in product and marketing work. Schiefer started at Amy’s as a high school intern on the production line and in canning, then spent more than two decades in IT, international sales, sustainability, and as chief of staff.

As president he delivered the company’s strongest gross margin performance in a decade and improved profitability by 60 percent, according to that April announcement. His brief as CEO was innovation, sustainability, and operational excellence. The Santa Rosa shutdown is the first large manufacturing move issued under that mandate.

The brand is still selling a lot of food. Andy Berliner said shoppers spent about $1 billion on Amy’s products at U.S. registers in 2025, which translated to about $600 million in sales for the company. The April release put the products in more than 57,000 stores and in more than 11 countries, with over 150 varieties. Amy’s remains a Certified B Corporation and family owned.

Why Santa Rosa Now Makes So Little

Schiefer has already described the capacity problem in public. In October 2024, when Amy’s cut 311 jobs, nearly 15 percent of its workforce, he said packaging lines were running at 65 percent of capacity. He put the level he wanted at about 85 to 90 percent. “What we’re selling has changed since COVID. We’re making a different mix and different products,” he said then.

The 2024 cuts hit managers, clerical staff, and line workers in Petaluma and Santa Rosa, plus remote jobs. Oregon and Idaho were spared that round. Demand, the company says now, is still strong. The issue it names is a network that no longer matches the mix.

That reading sits poorly with a familiar political take that California simply chased a hometown brand over the state line. Santa Rosa was already the small plant. Medford opened in March 2006 with a pizza-dough room and a soup line built the length of the kitchen. Pocatello opened in July 2014 in a former Heinz building and brought 300 jobs back to that city at the time. By the company’s own account, those two sites had already taken the volume.

The company also halted a long-planned manufacturing and packaging plant in Goshen, New York, saying it does not need more production space. In 2014 it had already dropped plans for a second Santa Rosa factory that was expected to create 800 jobs, choosing East Coast proximity instead, then never filling that eastern gap.

The Factory Amy’s Sold and Still Rents

Amy’s does not even own the Santa Rosa building it is leaving. In 2021 it sold its three company-owned plants to New York real estate trust W. P. Carey in a $144 million deal covering 936,500 square feet in California, Oregon, and Idaho. It then master leased the plants for 30 years, with fixed annual rent increases.

W. P. Carey called the three sites the entirety of Amy’s owned manufacturing footprint at the time, and said they also handled research, quality testing, and commodity storage. Combined, they produced over 21 million cases of food in 2020. Santa Rosa’s share of that footprint is the 107,000-square-foot building on Northpoint Parkway. Medford is 350,000 square feet. Pocatello, at 221 Phil Meador Avenue, is 479,500.

A 30-year lease on a plant that is going dark is a cost the company did not discuss in its September remarks. The trust still holds the deed. Amy’s still holds the lease. What happens to the empty California kitchen, and to the rent on it, was not part of the announcement.

San Jose Lasted 16 Months

Santa Rosa is the second California factory Amy’s has closed in four years, and it follows a 2024 downsizing that had already thinned the North Bay payroll. The pattern is a company taking production out of the state where it was born, then taking it out again.

CALIFORNIA CUTS SINCE 2022

1. March 2021: Opens a 74,000-square-foot leased pizza plant in East San Jose.
2. July 18, 2022: Stops production there after 16 months. A state notice says all 331 employees are affected and the plant was losing $1 million a month. The site closes on September 16, 2022.
3. August 2022: Cal/OSHA issues $25,000 in fines and 13 citations, three of them serious, after a worker complaint at Santa Rosa, where about 680 people then worked.
4. June 2024: A consumer boycott that ran more than two years ends after talks with Santa Rosa line workers and Food Empowerment Project. Amy’s agrees to safety steps, bilingual employee service staff, and a 3% merit wage increase.
5. October 2024: Cuts 311 jobs, nearly 15 percent of staff, after Schiefer says lines are running at 65 percent of capacity.
6. September 17, 2026: Confirms the Santa Rosa plant will close and that about 51 Pocatello canning jobs will go.
7. December 18, 2026: Pocatello canning separations take effect under an Idaho WARN notice.

Unite Here Local 19 had filed unfair labor practice charges over the San Jose site before that plant went dark, and union officers called the shutdown part of a campaign against organizing. Amy’s blamed inflation, ingredient costs, turnover, and supply-chain trouble. Fred Scarpulla, then acting chief executive and chief culinary officer, said the losses could not be offset by the other plants.

Santa Rosa had its own labor fight. Worker Cecilia Luna Ojeda filed a Cal/OSHA complaint in January 2022 over pace, repetitive injuries, and access to breaks. Teamsters Local 665 helped workers who wanted a union. In 2022 the company employed more than 2,800 people, with about 630 of them in Santa Rosa. The plant that now lists 207 jobs is already a smaller place than it was four years ago.

Schiefer said this month that neither the boycott nor the union drives raised local operating costs or influenced the closure, and that Oregon and Idaho have not seen the same worker campaigns. Food Empowerment Project said worker concerns on safety, wages, health coverage, and the right to organize are still on its books.

Medford Gets the Cans by December

Idaho already has the paperwork. The WARN notice Amy’s filed with the Idaho Department of Labor, signed by Chief People Officer Goretti Hamlin, calls the Pocatello canning layoff permanent. Workers there are not in a union, and the notice says no bumping rights exist. Visible job titles include 14 Cook II roles, 14 Manufacturing Operator I roles, five Operator II roles, and five Operator IV roles, plus other titles whose counts were hard to read on the copy obtained locally.

WHAT THE NOTICE AND THE COMPANY PROMISE

• Pocatello date: Canning staff at 221 Phil Meador Avenue are separated effective December 18, 2026.
• Santa Rosa timing: The first California round is scheduled for the end of 2026, with a second by summer 2027.
• Support on offer: Separation pay, job-placement help, and counseling through the employee assistance program.
• What stays: Petaluma headquarters, the Medford kitchen, and Pocatello as the entree plant, with local officials putting remaining Idaho staff in the 750 to 800 range.

California law still has to be met on the Santa Rosa side. State rules call for 60 days’ notice before a plant closing at a site that has employed 75 or more people in the prior year. Idaho’s filing is already public. California’s was not on the state’s published list through mid-September.

The Berliners first full-sized kitchen in Sonoma County opened in June 1988 with eight people, including Andy and Rachel, after the couple outgrew the farmhouse where they had packed vegetable pot pies beside their infant daughter, born November 18, 1987. The first pies went out in December 1987 from a recipe by Rachel’s mother, Eleanor. That Sonoma kitchen is the line the company is now taking down.

On the ground in Pocatello, “Join Our Team” signs were still up at the plant after the notice went in. Dahlquist called the Idaho cut a mass layoff for the company, not for the city. Santa Rosa does not have that cushion. When the last shift clocks out, Amy’s will still sell frozen pies, burritos, and soup from Petaluma letterhead. It will not make them in California.