Napa Winery Filling Part Of Employment Hole Left By General Mills
LODI (CBS13) — The second-largest family-owned winery in the world is moving part of its production to Lodi.
The Trinchero winery plant in Lodi started shipping wine from its new bottling facility on Monday.
The Napa winery says because a lot of its grape production is done in Lodi, moving its bottling and shipping to Lodi makes sense. For the city of Lodi, it makes jobs."
The $300 million facility west of Interstate 5 in Lodi has been under construction for more than a year.
"If the wine is made here, we want to bottle it here instead of shipping it to Napa Valley which was an impact on carbon footprint as well as cost," said Kent Mann, the vice president of Central Valley operations for the winery.
He says the winery brings nearly 100 jobs to Lodi, a city that was hit hard when General Mills announced it was closing its doors last year, laying off 400 workers. The winery actually hired seven maintenance technicians and bottlers from General Mills and is looking to fill 25 to 50 more positions in Lodi.
"I did have to leave sooner than the shut down, but it allowed me to set up so that my family didn't have a down time with me not having a job," said Leonard Ishihara.
"Oh I'm very thankful," said John Johnson, who was also hired from General Mills. "Especially with this company. It's a good company. I've been more challenged in this company than I have any other place."
The huge facility is already moving cases of its multiple brands. Sturart Spencer with the Lodi Wine Grape Commission says a local winery will also expand its facility soon.
"That's one of the things with the growth of the wine industry," he said. "You're seeing more wineries popping up out in the country and expanding their operations."