PORTLAND, Maine — A food-processing company known for its frozen stuffed chicken products says it’s laying off another 79 workers at its Portland, Maine, processing plant.
Barber Foods was acquired by AdvancePierre Foods, of Cincinnati, last year.
After that the company laid-off 71 workers at the Portland plant in December and 82 last June.
The Portland Press Herald reported Monday that Barber has said the acquisition allowed it to move production of its line of fully cooked foods to a more efficient plant owned by AdvancePierre in Oklahoma.
The Portland plant will focus on raw foods like stuffed chicken breasts.
After the latest layoffs, there will be 300 workers remaining in Portland.
Paulie needs to aim that laser-like focus on jobs in the other direction.
LePage You LIE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Where are all the jobs you promised Mainers over 14 months ago? More Maine Jobs bye bye, never to return. What next move the plant to Cincinnati where most of the chickens are produced anyway? Save a Huge Amount of Money transporting frozen chicken in and out of Maine.
This company has been laying off people and starting to flounder in Maine years before Lepage showed up. Where’s the common sense these days? THINK before YOU RANT.
71 jobs lost in December + 82 jobs lost in June + 79 jobs losses announced now in April= 232 total jobs lost under LePage’s time in office. That’s a pretty significant number of unemployed people who must be praying they find another job before their unemployment runs out.
Do you think a company this big just comes in the next day and decides to lay off THAT many people? This sort of thing takes time. Not over night or the very next day a governor takes office. Some people are so quick to point the blame at a single person, in this case Lepage… I bet you don’t even buy these products to help this company stay in business? Wouldn’t THAT be the reason a company cant stay in business generally?
I guess this is like when Obama was elected, starting in Jan. 09 all of those who lost jobs was his fault. This is (R)money’s position, doesn’t seem fair yet it is out there.
Really???????? Chill out.
More hope and change! Yes we can!
Let’s boycott chicken and only eat lobstah!!!
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My experience is that this company made its bread and butter on marketing heavily processed chicken items to chain restaurants, schools, and other institutions. With the bigger focus on eating healthy across the board it would not suprise me at all if they are having trouble selling their products in todays marketplace.
Blaming LePage for a company laying off people as a result of poor frozen, processed chicken products sales is like blaming Baldacci for B and M laying people off as a result of poor canned baked bean sales.