Amy's Kitchen and Ruiz Foods Cut Hundreds of California Jobs as Frozen Food Production Shifts Out of State

California's food manufacturing sector took two hits within weeks of each other. The scale is significant.

Amy's Kitchen, the Petaluma-based organic food maker, announced it's closing its original Santa Rosa plant in phases, cutting about 207 jobs there and 51 more at its Pocatello, Idaho, canning operation, for a total of roughly 260 positions eliminated across the company's manufacturing network, according to the Press Democrat. Layoffs start late this year and wrap by summer 2027.

CEO Paul Schiefer didn't sugarcoat it. "This is hard, and it should be hard," he told the Press Democrat. "We looked at every alternative before landing here." The company says the move is about aligning each plant with what it does best: Medford, Oregon will handle pizza, soup and burritos, while Pocatello becomes the entrée facility.

That's a real business, not a fringe operation. Shoppers spend about $1 billion a year on Amy's products at retail, generating roughly $600 million in gross sales for the company, according to the NY Post. Market research firm SPINS ranks Amy's number one in several organic categories, including an 89.09% dollar share of organic frozen pizza.

The NY Post framed the closure as a "shock retreat" from California manufacturing. Amy's headquarters stays in Petaluma, and the company's own statement, reported by Hoodline and the Press Democrat, frames this as a network reorganization by product category, not an exit from the state. Santa Rosa now accounts for only a small share of total output. This is not Amy's first round of Santa Rosa cuts. The California Employment Development Department recorded 283 layoffs at the Northpoint Parkway site and 22 at Dutton Avenue effective December 3, 2024, according to WARN records cited by Hoodline.

Separately, co-founders Andy and Rachel Berliner listed their Stinson Beach estate for $16 million in May, according to Hoodline, as the couple has stepped back from daily operations.

Ruiz Foods: Second Round of Cuts Since Leaving for Texas

Ruiz Foods, maker of El Monterey and Tornados frozen Mexican food, filed a WARN notice cutting 176 jobs at its Dinuba, California, plant, according to Yahoo Finance. Six employees were laid off between September 2 and September 9; another 170 are scheduled to lose their jobs November 4.

CEO Kimberli Carroll said the cuts were needed "to better align production capacity with anticipated customer demand." The company gave no further detail on which products or lines are affected, according to thecoconutmama.

This is the second California cut for Ruiz Foods in two years. The company closed its Tulare facility in 2024, eliminating 215 jobs, and moved its corporate headquarters from Dinuba to Frisco, Texas, that same year. The Dinuba plant, which still employs about 1,400 people, will stay open, and Ruiz says it will keep investing there.

Neither Amy's nor Ruiz cited California's cost of doing business, taxes, or regulations as a reason for the cuts in their public statements. What's documented is a pattern: two major California-rooted food manufacturers, both around or above $1 billion in revenue, shrinking their in-state footprint within the same month.

Meanwhile, Other Brands Are Growing

While California loses plants, J.M. Smucker's Uncrustables just crossed $1 billion in annual sales, the company announced in June, according to CNN. The brand added more than 3 million households in the past year and is drawing new competitors, including Trader Joe's, Welch's, and a brand backed by former NFL player Pat McAfee. Consumer analyst Nate Rosen told CNN the appeal is nostalgia paired with a product that needs "the least amount of education possible."

A Separate Fire Adds to the Pressure

The broader California cold-storage and frozen food industry has also faced regulatory and community fallout this year. Lineage, which operates a massive cold-storage warehouse in Boyle Heights that burned in a June 17 fire, has been fighting backlash over the cleanup, according to the LA Times. The South Coast Air Quality Management District logged more than 4,900 odor complaints and issued 38 violation notices. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the company had "run out its welcome." Lineage CEO Greg Lehmkuhl disputes the criticism, telling the LA Times the company spent more than $150 million fighting the fire and cleaning up, and has since sued the operator of a rooftop solar array, alleging it caused the blaze. Cal/OSHA and the LA Fire Department are both investigating; no findings have been announced.

The Lineage fire is a separate incident with no established link to the Amy's or Ruiz decisions. It adds to a broader picture of a state where food storage and manufacturing operations are drawing intense regulatory and public scrutiny at the same time some of the biggest names in the industry are shrinking their footprint here.

Amy's next milestone is the Idaho WARN notice already filed for Pocatello, with permanent layoffs there expected by the end of this year. Whether other California food manufacturers follow Ruiz Foods and Amy's out of the state, or whether this is a temporary contraction, remains an open question.