NORTHAMPTON — Three years since the Coca-Cola bottling facility on Industrial Drive announced plans to close, the company plans to permanently shut down the facility on Dec. 15, a move expected to result in 175 layoffs.
Coca-Cola filed a notice in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) on June 15, stating that the site’s closure is expected to bring the job losses on Aug. 15 and Nov. 30.
“The Coca-Cola Company is moving forward with plans to close its production facility in Northampton by the end of 2026. The company is grateful to have been part of the Northampton community for many years,” a Coca-Cola spokesperson wrote in an email to the Gazette. “While employees have been aware of these plans for some time, the company is issuing formal notices now to provide as much advance notice as possible. The company is committed to supporting employees through this transition, including working closely with the state to identify new job opportunities.”
The plant, which employs around 300 people, bottles the beverage company’s non-carbonated products such as Minute Maid and Powerade. It is the largest industrial site and the largest water consumer in the city, at one point accounting for a quarter of all of the city’s water and sewer revenue.
The company first announced the planned closure of the plant in 2021, saying at the time operations would cease by summer 2023. But the timing of the plant’s closure has been continuously pushed back, with no clear sign of when workers there may need to find new jobs.
In anticipation of the plant’s closing, Northampton raised base water and sewer rates by more than 200% in 2023, affecting most homeowners.
Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, in an interview Tuesday, explained that since the city raised its rates in 2023 in anticipation of Coca-Cola’s closure, it has been able to stabilize its water enterprise funds. She said the city will likely not have to further alter its water rates as a result of the company’s departure.
Sciarra went on to explain that her most grave concern related to the facility’s closing is for the 175 employees losing their jobs. She said a collaborative effort from MassHire’s rapid response team, the Franklin/Hampshire County Career Center and the Hampden County Career Center has been activated to coordinate career events and support for the employees.
“People are coming together to try and support the workers as much as possible,” the mayor said. “This has been expected, or we’ve been told many times that they were leaving, so this is not a surprise. But for those workers and those families, of course, this is really difficult news. … We want to help support them any way that we possibly can.”
Although the bottling site’s future is largely in Coca-Cola’s hands, Sciarra said she has been in contact with representatives from the company and hopes they will sell the location to a company that intends to use it for a similar, and similarly profitable, purpose.
“We have not increased our water and sewer usage rates in quite a few years, and this is how we’ve been able to stabilize. We were anticipating them leaving, so nothing changes from our standpoint as of right now,” Sciarra said. “My goal since the beginning, which I continue to reach out to [Coca-Cola] and tell them that we want, is to try and market that plant to someone, ideally another bottler or another user of water, to be able to get back to a place where we are getting that water and sewer revenue from that plant.”
Department of Public Works Director Donna LaScaleia could not be reached for comment on Monday.
