Taylor Farms charts path to recovery from Salinas fire

Recovery is underway for Taylor Farms after its primary foodservice processing facility in Salinas, Calif., was severely damaged by a fire that spanned April 13-14.

In a statement e-mailed to The Packer on April 19, the company said its Yuma, Ariz., processing facility remains fully operational and was running at full capacity.

“We are also thankful that the operating network our company has built over the last 27 years, encompassing of over 22,000 employees and 20 facilities across North America, has been specifically designed to be flexible and reliable,” the statement said. “No doubt, the fire that impacted our largest foodservice operation in Salinas will be a challenging situation to navigate, but our team has already begun to move processing into available space in Salinas, as well as began gearing up other Taylor Farms facilities to support our Foodservice customers with the great products they depend on."

The statement said Taylor Farms has already cleared permitting hurdles to begin the rebuilding process for the damaged facility, located at 1207 Abbott St. in Salinas.

“With the support and help of our employees, our larger community in Salinas, our customer partners and our good fortune of having equipment on order for other projects that will be redeployed to our Salinas operation, we feel confident we can build this facility back up to be the most modern, automated salad processing plant in record time,” the statement said.