WolfWeave

According to the Chicago Tribune:

Sara Lee to close South Side meat-processing plant, laying off 185 workers

By Mike Hughlett | Tribune reporter November 20, 2008

Sara Lee Corp. said Wednesday that it intends to shutter its kosher hot dog and meat-processing facility on Chicago’s South Side by Jan. 30, which will cost 185 workers their jobs as the consumer-products giant exits the kosher meat business.

Downers Grove-based Sara Lee will also close an outlet store at the facility at 1000 W. Pershing Rd. The company will stop producing kosher brands, including its Best’s Kosher, Sinai Kosher, Shofar and Wilno nameplates.

It did not disclose sales figures for the business.

“They’re pretty small brands,” said Sara Lee spokesman Mike Cummins. Kosher meat, he said, is a “niche business” for Sara Lee.

Sara Lee plans to put the kosher meat plant and accompanying property up for sale.

The company has owned the South Side plant since 1993, when it bought Bessin Corp., which at the time had 580 workers and annual sales of $85 million. Bessin’s roots in Chicago go back to 1925, when Best’s Kosher Sausage Co. opened. Best merged with Sinai Kosher in 1983 and changed the firm’s name to Bessin.

Because of the deterioration of the kosher business’ value, Sara Lee has taken a non-cash impairment charge of $20 million to $25 million, according to a July filing with securities regulators.

Sara Lee said Wednesday that the charge refers to the kosher operation. Tribune reporter James P. Miller contributed to this report.

SO, in other words, 15 years ago, Sara Lee bought up the once thriving business (annual sales of $85 million) of Best’s Kosher (think salami and hotdogs) which employed 580 workers and now they’re shutting down a business that has somehow dwindled to only 185 employees (despite the fact that its products are in every grocery store here in the Chicago area at least)…BUT they’re declaring a securities loss (tax loss, stock profit?)—”non-cash impairment charge”— of $20 to $25 million while permanently putting out of business a 103-year-old company and household name in the kosher food industry.

Nice work Sara Lee. Quite cavalier of you. Of course, I can remember when “The Kitchens of Sara Lee” was just a little (Jewish-owned) Chicago-based “niche business” and not the huge corporate giant it is today (after being purchased by Consolidated Foods, which eventually changed the company name to Sara Lee Foods for “brand recognition”)Wikipedia.

How about if Jewish people across the United States start a boycott of Sara Lee products and see what that does for your stock value?
That wouldn’t be quite so funny now would it, Sara Lee? “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee?” Think again!