San Leandro tortilla factory warns of shutdown
About 51 workers are losing their jobs as Mi Rancho plans move to a new facility
SAN LEANDRO >> Mi Rancho, famed for the tortillas it has manufactured in the East Bay for decades, has formally warned state labor officials that it will shut its San Leandro factory within weeks.
The closure of the San Leandro tortilla plant looms on the heels of the company’s decision to open a state-of-the-art factory in the Central Valley.
Scores of East Bay jobs are on the chopping block as a result of the San Leandro plant shutdown, according to an official notice filed with the state Employment Development Department by Berber Food Manufacturing, the owner of the Mi Rancho company.
“This is to notify you that Mi Rancho San Leandro Plant will be closing on May 28, 2021,” Carol Berber, the owner of Berber Food Manufacturing, wrote in the official notice to the EDD.
About 51 workers are losing their jobs as a result of the factory shutdown this month.
“The duration of these layoffs is permanent,” Berber said in the letter.
An early warning that the San Leandro tortilla factory’s future could be in doubt arrived in 2018 when Mi Rancho decided it would open a state-of-the-art manufacturing complex in the Sacramento County city of Elk Grove in an industrial park near State Route 99 and Interstate 5.
“The company plans to invest $25 million to retrofit the facility,” the city of Elk Grove stated in a prepared release in July 2018, referring to the new Mi Ranch factory in that community.
Elk Grove in 2018 said it was prepared to dangle economic incentives in front of Berber Food Manufacturing and Mi Rancho as a way to cajole the company to open a modern tortilla factory in the Central Valley city.
“When we looked for possible locations for expansion, Elk Grove’s economic development team rolled out the red carpet for us,” Manuel Berber, company owner and president, said in a prepared release in 2018.
Multiple factors provided the propulsion for Mi Rancho and Berber Manufacturing to create a new factory in Elk Grove.
“The city’s economic incentive programs, skilled labor force, and proximity to our San Leandro headquarters made the decision to expand our operations to Elk Grove easy,” Manuel Berber said.
Employees at the San Leandro factory were warned multiple times during 2020 that there was a possibility that the plant could shut its doors, according to the April 2021 plant closure notice.
The company’s roots extend as far back as 1939 when Mi Rancho opened on Seventh Street in Oakland. Throughout the Depression, World War II, and the postwar years, Mi Rancho was a draw for customers seeking fresh hand-made tortillas, hot food, and bakery goods.
In 1954, Robert Berber Sr. and his son Robert Berber Jr. purchased Mi Rancho, seeing the potential to expand beyond the grocery store and launch a tortilla manufacturing operation.
The company’s website didn’t state when the company began factory and headquarters operations in San Leandro.
This news organization requested a comment from multiple executives at Berber Food Manufacturing, including Manuel Berber and Carol Berber.
The expansion to Elk Grove appears to have come at a high price for some East Bay Mi Rancho factory employees.
“Some of your team members have successfully relocated to Elk Grove, at our new facility,” Berber Food Manufacturing stated in a letter sent to its employees that was included in the notice. “If you are receiving this notice, it is because you have chosen not to relocate to the new facility.”