Laid off from Flowers Foods.

What Flowers Foods layoffs have meant for employees

Flowers said the products of its Winston-Salem, Opelika and Atlanta bakeries would keep coming from its other plants. Its second-quarter 2017 release said Winston-Salem's sweet baked goods would shift to more efficient Flowers snack cake bakeries, Opelika's buns and rolls were to be made at other Flowers bakeries, as The Observer reported the company's statement, and other Flowers plants were to take over Bailey Street's production, according to Milling MEA. Parts of some sites were to carry on, with Opelika's retail outlet and an Atlanta discount store expected to stay open, and Opelika's mayor said he understood some workers would get a chance to be reassigned to other Flowers facilities. The Atlanta closing's notice also counted temporary staff from Aramark assigned to the bakery. If Flowers offers you both a transfer to another bakery and a severance package, you could time the commute to the new plant and look at its shift schedule and pay rate.

Those closings also brought help that wasn't cash. Opelika's general manager offered job counseling and assistance through local and state agencies. In Baton Rouge, Food Dive reported, the affected employees were eligible for job placement support, while the plant's shipping department was to keep serving customers as part of a wider bakery warehouse network in Louisiana. In both places, that help came on top of the severance package.

Beyond the closings, Flowers has recorded voluntary exits and layoffs under the same restructuring. In 2020 it booked charges for both a voluntary separation plan and an involuntary reduction in force, according to a later annual report, and it recorded costs for both again in the February 2023 restructuring. In 2017, people let go outside that year's buyout received severance under what the company's report for 2017 called its normal severance policies. If Flowers offers you a buyout, you could note the date its election period closes, as the 2017 one closed September 25.

Flowers has framed these cuts as matters of cost and efficiency. When it announced the 2020 job cuts, its chief executive said the company regretted losing those team members and tied the move to reducing complexity and improving margins, as Food Dive reported, and the outlet put the 2017 cost cuts at a net drop of about 450 people, including a 15% cut in management positions. The later reductions in force came under a 2024 cost savings program and a 2025 cost-to-serve review, and Flowers' restructuring note for 2025 gives their costs without saying how many people they touched.

At Winston-Salem the closing date moved, and in Atlanta the end of production wasn't the last day for everyone. Flowers had said in 2017 that Winston-Salem would close in early October, and its annual report later put the closing in November. In Atlanta, where its 2025 annual report dates the end of production to April 16, a few employees were to stay until May 9 to wind the bakery down, and in Baton Rouge the plant manager had given a window of September 18 to October 1 before production ended September 19. If Flowers asks you to stay on for a wind-down, or a closing date moves, your last day may not match the day production stops. For the Atlanta closing there's more on Georgia unemployment benefits, and for Baton Rouge on Louisiana unemployment benefits.