Foster Farms may sound like some quaint place where you to pick apples in the fall, but in reality it is a fairly large company that creates the dairy products that we use every day. For those of you who are not familiar with the company or its products, here is a look at how the company has chosen to describe itself, “The management team of Foster Farms is committed to blending change with our founders Max and Verda Foster’s vision. Our growth over the past seventy years is a testament to this. Keeping abreast of consumer taste, stringent quality requirements and environmental values requires a team of dedicated professionals.”

Sadly that team of dedicated professionals is going to get  smaller in the near future. The company is getting ready to get rid of 100 jobs in order to make the company more profitable. These kinds of cuts are more than enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

The job cuts are set to come from a single facility located in downtown Salem. Under the terms of a mass layoff action workers must be given some time to prepare, and these job cuts will not happen until the 1^st of October, which may not be enough time for these workers to move into new positions before they are put off of the payroll. They are being given preferential hiring status for other open positions inside of the company, so there is a chance that not all of them will need to be laid off.

This layoff is a bit of a surprise, since over the last couple of years the company has been on a bit of an acquisitions spree. In 2010 the company bought out a bankrupt competitor, “The US Bankruptcy Count has authorized the sale of Matterhorn Group, Inc. to Foster Dairy Farms of Modesto, California. The assets sold include the company’s two processing plants located in Sacramento, California and Salem, Oregon. The transaction is expected to close on November 24, 2010.” Before that in 2009 the company bought another dairy,  “MODESTO, Calif. — Today the sale of certain assets of Humboldt Creamery to Foster Dairy Farms of Modesto, California was finalized. The assets sold include the company’s processing plant in Fernbridge, California and the frozen distribution center in Stockton, California. The integration of the two businesses has been in the works for the past two weeks.”