California craft beer pioneer Stone Brewing is exiting three Escondido locations and laying off hundreds of workers as its new owners move production.<\/p>\n
Sapporo USA\u2014which sold Stone Brewing to Firestone Walker Brewing Co. and Duvel Moortgat USA in a deal that closed May 15\u2014plans to lay off a total of 220 employees as the new owners shift production to Paso Robles and Kansas City, Mo. <\/p>\n
The Southern Californian layoffs will begin with 58 workers on Oct. 19, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letters that Sapporo USA filed with the state Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Mass layoffs are coming to another San Diego-based food company. Tinned fish giant Bumble Bee Foods plans to close a production facility in Santa Fe Springs \u201csometime in 2027, most likely in late March 2027,\u201d according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letter the company filed last week. <\/p>\n
Zach Keeling, Sapporo USA CEO, said in a statement that Sapporo USA is winding down the Escondido brewery in phases because it has \u201cnot yet found a viable long-term solution\u201d for the site. <\/p>\n
Sapporo USA had acquired<\/a> Stone Brewing in 2022.<\/p>\n Sapporo USA said the layoffs mean it is winding down the Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens in Escondido. The popular spot is known for its duck tacos and ceviche.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an understandably difficult time for our Escondido employees and community, and we\u2019re committed to supporting them through this transition,\u201d Keeling said. When the acquisition was announced in April, it noted the Escondido portfolio was excluded from the sale. <\/p>\n Stone Brewing, launched in 1996 in San Marcos by Greg Koch and Steve Wagner, was the poster child of the West Coast craft brewing boom of the 2000s and 2010s. In 2016, it became the first American brewer to operate in Germany, The Times<\/a> has reported. <\/p>\n By 2018, the craft beer industry\u2019s buzz was starting to wear off. <\/p>\n The pandemic dealt a heavy blow to Southern California\u2019s independent craft breweries.<\/a> <\/p>\n San Francisco\u2019s Anchor Brewing Co., the maker of the iconic Anchor Steam craft beer,<\/a> was hemorrhaging money when it was shut down by parent company Sapporo Holdings Ltd. in 2023. Though Chobani yogurt billionaire<\/a> Hamdi Ulukaya announced he was buying the company in 2024 and pledged to save it, Anchor Steam beer has still not returned to shelves. <\/p>\n Stone Brewing beer will continue to be made, according to the April acquisition announcement. Production of the Stone portfolio will gradually transition to Firestone Walker\u2019s brewery in Paso Robles, Calif., and Duvel USA\u2019s Boulevard brewery in Kansas City, Mo., the joint statement said.<\/p>\n Firestone Walker and Duvel USA plan to hire a \u201csignificant number\u201d of Stone Brewing employees across hospitality, sales and marketing, according to the joint statement.<\/p>\n Firestone Walker, the company behind another popular local brewer, said it was buying Stone to build a Californian craft brewery powerhouse.<\/p>\n \u201cLike Stone, Firestone Walker was founded in 1996 and is widely regarded as one of California\u2019s leading craft brewers,\u201d it said in a statement about the acquisition in April. \u201cFirestone Walker will play a central role in supporting Stone\u2019s future, as the two coastal breweries together represent a powerful expression of California\u2019s craft heritage. Stone Brewing will retain its distinct voice, joining a family of breweries that share a deep respect for beer tradition and culture.\u201d<\/p>\n Duvel USA and Firestone Walker planned to split distribution responsibilities, with Duvel handling the region east of the Rockies and Firestone Walker handling California, the Western U.S., Texas and national accounts, according to the statement.<\/p>\n While the deal didn\u2019t include all of Stone\u2019s facilities, it did include four of its hospitality locations, including its beer garden at Liberty Station in San Diego, a former naval training center turned buzzy food hall, and taprooms in San Diego, Oceanside and Pasadena.<\/p>\n In a separate round of layoffs, Bumble Bee Foods plans to lay off 197 workers on Nov. 19 and estimates that it will lay off another 36 workers when the fish canning facility finally closes. <\/p>\n \u201cThis decision is part of an effort to streamline our supply chain and production network by reducing the number of processing points in the value stream,\u201d Bumble Bee Foods spokesperson Arielle Schechtman said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California craft beer pioneer Stone Brewing is exiting three Escondido locations and laying off hundreds of workers as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1017861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[22127,64,407345,13941,407346,407347,18818,407348,18904,407349,8662,407344,2549,11004,128247,67,132,68,17253],"class_list":["post-1017860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-brewery","tag-business","tag-duvel-moortgat-usa","tag-employee","tag-firestone-walker-brewing-co","tag-food-company","tag-kansas-city","tag-paso-robles","tag-production","tag-retraining-notification-letter","tag-sale","tag-sapporo-usa","tag-southern-california","tag-statement","tag-stone-brewing","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-worker"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117141425847017142","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1017861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}