PepsiCo to shut down most operations at key facility: 'Difficult to sustain'

PepsiCo is shuttering key operations at its Mack Avenue facility in Detroit.

What's happening?

PepsiCo announced the Detroit facility's imminent partial closure in late July, CBS News reported.

"PepsiCo Beverages U.S. recently announced the shutdown of manufacturing, transport, and maintenance operations at our Detroit site," the beverage company said in a statement.

"Our warehouse, fleet, delivery, sales and field service teams will continue to operate at this location," the corporation stipulated.

It will cease the listed operations starting September 27, and it will lay off 84 workers. The Detroit facility is one of several PepsiCo plants across the U.S. that have closed in the space of a year.

Why does the closure of PepsiCo's Detroit plant matter?

Consumers have become more critical of PepsiCo's ultra-processed products, causing a sustained dip in sales. 

In the past year, PepsiCo has also laid off hundreds of workers across the country.

In regard to the closure of their Liberty, New York, plant in February, PepsiCo told Newsweek that "the pace of growth" for PopCorners, a variety of chips, "paired with broader industry pace of growth has made it difficult to sustain the site's long-term viability."

While market-influenced cuts are standard in manufacturing, PepsiCo has also been known to engage in wasteful, unnecessary business practices to boost its bottom line.

For example, in 2023 the food and beverage giant was sued by New York State over plastic pollution, specifically a vast amount of debris in the Buffalo River attributed to PepsiCo.

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While PepsiCo eventually won that case and claimed to be taking sustainability seriously, it was still accused of being one of the most egregious plastic polluters that year.

The corporation is also party to a filed class-action lawsuit in California. 

Plaintiffs in the case alleged that PepsiCo grossly underfilled bags of PopCorners and materially misled consumers about the volume of chips in each bag.

What's being done about the layoffs?

In PepsiCo's official statement, the company asserted it would offer "pay and benefits to impacted employees."

Mass layoffs can be worrisome, and another round of PepsiCo cuts could be particularly distressing to workers in the food and beverage sector. 

Concerned employees can visit the WARN Tracker — named for the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act — which keeps tabs on which companies are anticipating layoffs.

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