HyLife Foods facility in southern Minnesota could close as soon as next week, leaving 1K employees jobless
WINDOM, Minn. -- A food facility in southern Minnesota that employs about 1,000 workers could close as soon as next week if the company can not find a buyer for the facility.
HyLife Foods notified the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development of the potential closure on Monday.
HyLife said current ownership bought the plant in Windom -- about two-and-a-half hours southwest of the Twin Cities -- in 2020, "with a goal of turning operations around."
"Unfortunately, despite these efforts, we have had to combat a number of challenges, including inflationary pressures, high grain costs, foreign exchange rates and the plant's operational losses," the company said. "For some time now, the Company has been exploring several strategic options that would have enabled it to continue go-forward operations despite these financial challenges. Unfortunately, so far, these efforts have not been successful."
HyLife said if they cannot find a buyer for part or all of the business, it's possible all 1,007 employees could be terminated as soon as Monday, April 17, or as late as June 2. The company acknowledged that even if it does find a buyer, the new owner may not retain current employees.
HyLife said it did not notify DEED of the potential closure earlier because "we have been actively seeking additional capital or financing that would have allowed us to continue operations and we reasonably believed that giving WARN notices would have precluded our ability to secure such capital or financing, resulting in a full shutdown of the Facility."
HyLife is a Canada-based pork producer and exporter.