Former Farmer John Employees Struggle To Find Employment (And Other Headlines)

For you and I, Farmer John is the name of a food brand that we’ve come across in grocery stores, and maybe we remember that it used to package the Dodger Dog until 2021. For former employees like Rina Chavarria, it was a workplace that brought stability and a sense of community.

Lives upended

The old slaughterhouse in Vernon had been around for close to a century before it ceased production in February. Its workers were laid off. The company blamed high operating costs in California and said it was moving operations out of state.

About 2,000 people, the size of a village, worked for the company — many of them Latino and/or immigrants. For some, it was the only job they had ever had in L.A.

“The average age of the worker at Farmer John ranges between 52 and 60 years old,” said Linda Nguyen with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which represented most of the Farmer John employees, “so changing careers, having to potentially have some English and math literacy, is pretty daunting for folks. Many of the folks that are in the upper age range had plans to retire at the plant, you know? So this is really upending their lives.”

Chavarria, who visited the site of the plant with LAist correspondent Leslie Berestein Rojas, hasn’t found a stable job since she was laid off. She was involved with the union and raised two kids while working at the slaughterhouse.

Folks told Leslie that a lack of language and digital skills — and in some cases, limited education — are among the hurdles these former workers face. California’s Employment Development Department announced a grant set aside for services like career counseling, job fairs, training and other support for laid-off Farmer John workers; UCFW is also helping facilitate resources, but there have been delays.

Read more about how the Farmer John slaughterhouse closure has brought instability to workers and opportunities for others in my colleague’s story.

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(After you stop hitting snooze)

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Wait... one more thing

A nutty thing about pizza

Cashew Pizza, Dirty Daves in Olympia, Wash.

(

Courtesy of Dirty Dave’s Pizza Parlor

)

Cashews on pizza — it’s an Inland Empire thing. The salty, buttery topping originates from Redlands, the city 60 miles east of L.A. There’s even a Facebook group that caters to folks who want to find the topping outside of the area. Why nuts on pizza? There really isn’t a reason, but the fandom has made IE folks proud.

Kirsten Morningstar, a professional recipe developer from Redlands, says, “It’s a point of pride for Redlands people to have our own cultural food, something we invented that’s all ours. It’s how you know someone’s from Redlands.”

LAist contributor Elaine Murphy explores historic eateries, the start of cashew pizza and the IE community in her latest story.