Sonoma County's 101-year-old apple processing plant leaving town
The 101-year-old company, Manzana, on Tuesday announced its plans to move its entire California operation in 2025 to the state of Washington, where most organic apples are produced. Photo: Manzana
SEBASTOPOL, Calif. - Sonoma County's last and only apple processing plant in Sebastopol is leaving town.
The 101-year-old company, Manzana, on Tuesday announced its plans to move its entire California operation in 2025 to the state of Washington, where most organic apples are produced, the company said in a news release.
Some of Manzana’s equipment is over 100 years old, and company executives said that to continue supplying the highest quality organic products and meet consumer needs, the facility needed to modernize.
Executives said that it became clear the equipment replacement and facility upgrades required a lot of money, and Manzana determined that making those investments in Sonoma County no longer made sense when the main location of the organic apple supply is in Washington.
The company also wanted to be physically closer to the apple supply, instead of transporting them across state lines, the company said.
Today, Sonoma County apples are only 10% of Manzana’s apple supply. The entirety of the remaining 90% of Manzana’s organic apple supply is imported from Washington state and other areas.
Andy Kay, CEO of Manzana Products Co., Inc., noted the difficult and emotional decision to leave Sonoma County and the impact the move will have on employees, local growers, and the
community.
"Manzana is part of Sonoma County’s rich agricultural history," Kay said in a statement. "Our century-long journey has woven Manzana into the very fabric of Sebastopol’s community."
Kay noted that many of the company's employees are descendants or related to multiple generations of family members who worked at Manzana over the last century.
This is the latest departure of a North Bay fixture from California.
Just last week, the Tortilla Factory in Santa Rosa announced it was moving operations to Kansas.
Manzana's apple farming peaked in the 1940s and 1950s when Sebastopol was known as the "Gravenstein Apple Capital of the World."
In fact, Manzana had been a key leader in keeping the Gravenstein Apple Fair a summer go-to for families, said Carmen Snyder, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Trails and the Gravenstein Apple Fair.
Company leaders said there were other obstacles for Manzana to continue operations at the Green Valley facility into the future.
First, running an active agricultural industrial operation is appropriate in agricultural zoning that is surrounded by other agricultural uses because of noise, smell, and transportation concerns. Today, Manzana has no opportunity to expand capacity at Manzana’s Sebastopol location, the company said.
Second, the cost of living and housing in Sonoma County has skyrocketed over the last few decades significantly impacting ongoing efforts to recruit a stable labor pool who can afford to live and work here.
Manzana executives said they wanted to give the headsup that they were closing at least a year in advance so that employees could begin to look for jobs elsewhere, or state whether they wanted to move with the company to Washington.