Utz to Shutter Grand Rapids, Michigan, Plant

Snack maker Utz Brands Inc. has announced it will shut down its Grand Rapids, Mich., processing plant by early 2026, as reported in its second-quarter 2025 financial report.

Employees will be encouraged to apply for work at other Utz facilities, and the company expects to also offer assistance and severance for employees who cannot relocate. According to one local news report, processing will end Jan. 30, 2026, with warehousing operations ending May 26, 2026.

The Grand Rapids facility was once part of Festida Foods, which manufactured tortilla chips for Utz’s On the Border tortilla chip brand — until Utz acquired it in May 2021 for $41 million.

Steps will begin this month (August 2025) to close the facility, which will take the company’s manufacturing footprint down to seven plants. It’s the latest trimming of the processing-plant roster for the snack manufacturer, who has been selling off or closing various facilities in the last few years — the company had 16 plants in 2021.

Last year, Utz sold five plants (and two brands) to Our Home in two separate deals — both of which came less than a year after the 2023 closure of its Carlisle Street Plant in Hanover, Pa., and divestiture of the Bluffton, Ind., plant to Super-Pufft Snacks USA Inc.

The company called the most recent decision to close Grand Rapids a “key component of the company’s long-term strategic roadmap, and added that consolidation of the facility should allow Utz to allocate more volume to larger, more efficient facilities — which in turn is expected to produce cost savings and support the company’s ongoing geographic expansion.