Entenmann's Bakery On Long Island Closing
BAY SHORE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A famed bakery has left Long Island after nearly a century.
Newsday reports Saturday that the era of locally made Entenmann's cakes and cookies ended with the closure of its Bay Shore plant on Aug. 13.
A spokesman told the publication the Bay Shore facility, which opened in 1961, was closed because "it can no longer effectively compete in the market.''
Newsday reports 176 of the plant's 265 workers lost their jobs. Some remaining employees will work in research and development, technology and marketing.
Locals lamented the move.
"They've been here all my life, and that's 53 years," Grace Leggio of Bay Shore told CBS 2 in May.
"At every gathering or store you go to, you have Entenmann's," said Eric Seaford of Bay Shore.
The company was founded by German immigrant William Entenmann in Brooklyn in 1898, and Entenmann moved the company to headquarters on Main Street in Bay Shore seven years later.
The company really went big time in 1961 with the construction of the big plant. CBS 2 was there in 1998, when Entenmann's celebrated its 100th anniversary, with a parade and children dressed as cookies.
Entenmann's was purchased by pharmaceutical firm Warner-Lambert in 1978, and sold to General Foods four years later. Following a series of transactions in the more than three decades since, the company is now owned by Mexican baking giant Grupo Bimbo, which says it's shifting production to other states including Pennsylvania.
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