Sonoma County packaging plant to lay off 73 as it closes down

A dozen years after a Michigan-based public company acquired a Sonoma County manufacturer known for its plastic lids for food jars, the local operation is set to close this fall amid wider restructuring of production to adjust to “lower demand” globally.

TriMas earlier this month announced that it would close its 160,000-square-foot leased manufacturing facility in Rohnert Park and move equipment to its other U.S. plants. The Rohnert Park site, at 1200 Valley House Drive, Suite 100, is part of the SOMO Village development.

In a notice to California employment regulators, TriMas’ food and beverage packaging group said it would close the Rohnert Park plant by Nov. 6. Fifty employees would be let go the second half of August, and the remaining 23 would be laid off between Oct. 24 and Nov. 6, according to the filing, required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or what’s known as a warn notice.

As part of this restructuring, TriMas Packaging said it would consolidate two plants in China into one larger facility to “better serve Asian markets as they recover.” And some of the production will be be moved to North American locations “to localize production, where necessary, to better serve its customers.”

Also, operations at a third-party New Jersey distribution center would be moved in-house.

TriMas President and CEO Thomas Amato said the “macro-economic pressures impacting demand” were “temporary.” The changes are set to be completed by year-end.

“While decisions to relocate production and distribution are never easy, we are opportunistically taking advantage of the current lower demand environment to better position our TriMas Packaging group for improved performance in the future,” Amato said in the announcement.

TriMas came to Sonoma County with the acquisition of Innovative Molding, a $27 million deal announced in July 2011, the Business Journal reported at the time. The same year, the then-110-employee company expanded to SOMO from 85,000 square feet in Sebastopol.

Grahame Reid founded the injection-molded plastics company in 1982. It expanded in 2009 to a second production facility in Atkins, Arkansas, a location TriMas Packaging continues to operate.

Packaging makes up 59% of TriMas’ $884 million in 2022 net sales, with aerospace accounting for 21% and specialty products 20%. It employs about 3,500 at more than three dozen locations in 13 countries.

Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction and real estate. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.