The 116-year-old Entenmann’s brand is closing down its landmark Long Island bakery and cutting 178 jobs ahead of tense contract talks with its delivery drivers.
Bimbo Bakeries, owner of the beloved baked-goods outfit, said Entenmann’s will cease making sweets at the Bay Shore facility by July and shift production to other plants.
The move will affect 178 of the site’s 265 workers, according to the company. Most are members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 53, sources said.
Entenmann’s headquarters are in Horsham, Penn., but it has deep roots in Bay Shore, where it set up a small shop and later a five-acre facility that was once the largest factory of its kind in the US.
Frank Sinatra had a standing weekly order for crumb cake from the Bay Shore bakery.
The Post reported last week that delivery drivers for Entenmann’s are bracing for tough contract talks set to start next month. The Teamsters Local 802 represents around 300 drivers in the New York area and northern New Jersey.
“I want to stress that this decision [to close the bakery] was based on production issues and is not related to the labor issues you have been covering,” a Bimbo spokesman told The Post.
The Teamsters contract with Bimbo, which also owns Thomas’ English muffins and Stroehmann bread, expired more than a year ago, and the last extension runs out in June.
Rival Hostess Brands filed for bankruptcy in 2012 amid a crippling strike by its bakery workers. When the company eventually liquidated, some 18,000 workers lost their jobs.