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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Allen Bankruptcy Bleak News for Western Sussex County

Every several minutes on a recent weekday, anothertruck rumbled past Guy Phillips' farm, which is set along Hollis and Gravel Hill roads just east of Georgetown.

Most hauled trailers stacked with empty cages, and were stamped with the familiar blue-and-yellow logo of Allen Family Foods, a 92-year-old member of Sussex County's billion-dollar poultry industry.

The trucks sped to reclaim chickens raised by area farmers, then ferry them back to Allen's Harbeson processing plant, only a couple of miles away.

But Phillips, 58, worries that the local bustle of Sussex County's chicken business will soon go quiet, after Allen collapsed into federal bankruptcy earlier this month.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Come on, everyone saw this coming. The top managers at Allen's for years have been terrible. They drove a great company right down the tubes. Every one of them should take personal responsibility. If Perdue or Mountaire hires any of them, they are idiots! ANY of them!!

Anonymous said...

Perdue, Mountaire, or Tyson will buy up what remains of the company. It isn't like the chicken industry will just close up in Sussex County.

Anonymous said...

It's not only the employees and growers who will suffer. The owners and employees of mini-markets who sell lunch and snacks to the employees will take a hit. The businesses who sell gas so the employees can get to work will see less business. There is a multitude of service providers who will be affected, some that we would never think of.

Anonymous said...

Nobody's gonna buy the dump in Cordova. Heard Perdue already hired the wicked witch who ran the Human Resources department.

Anonymous said...

1:38 - after they hosed over one of their best human resource professionals - she quit which left an opening. They have always favoured outside folks to come in instead of promoting from within...they'll probably take some of Allen's IT folks (on the cheap) to make up for some of the good ones recently let go.