California Just Lost a 115-Year Giant — And It’s a Warning

Added: 2026-05-04

[00:00:00]Blue Diamond jobs impacted as the Midtown Sacramento plant says goodbye after more than a hundred years.

[00:00:06]>> The Blue Diamond Growers historic plant near C and 16th Streets.

[00:00:10]>> That's where we find your reporter Kayla Müller on this for us tonight, getting answers on the closure and what will happen for the hundreds of workers there who now are without a job. I'm assuming Kayla, >> hundreds of employees are facing an uncertain future after learning the Midtown plant is shutting down. Now, we first told you about the closure of the Blue Diamond Manufacturing Plant in downtown Sacramento last summer. Now, the plant says they will keep the part of the plant focused on almond processing for export markets open. And current employees can apply for those positions, while other operations are still set to close. 600 people walked into work on June 6, 2025 and found out that the company their parents worked for and in some cases their grandparents before that was shutting its doors.

[00:00:58]Blue Diamond Growers, the world's largest almond company built in Sacramento in 1910, is closing its flagship manufacturing plant. And the city that spent 30 years and $20 million trying to hold on to it is now left planning what to do with 50 acres of history.

[00:01:19]Before getting into what happened, you need to understand what Blue Diamond actually is because most people outside of California don't fully grasp the scale of this company. Blue Diamond Growers holds the title of the world's largest almond processing and marketing company, not largest in California, not largest in the United States, but in the entire world. For 115 years, that company called Sacramento home. And unlike most large food companies, Blue Diamond isn't owned by Wall Street investors or private equity firms.

[00:01:56]Ownership belongs to the farmers themselves. approximately 3,000 almond growers across California, who together supply more than 80% of the world's almond supply. That number deserves a second look.

[00:02:10]80% of the world's almonds come from California, and the cooperative that built the industry started with 230 frustrated farmers who were tired of getting shortchanged.

[00:02:21]The year was 1910 and California almond growers were selling their crops one at a time to independent dealers who controlled the prices.

[00:02:30]Dissatisfied with those returns, 230 growers pulled their resources, formed the California Almond Growers Exchange, and hired professional managers to run the operation. Each member got paid according to the amount and quality of what they grew. a straightforward arrangement that gave small farmers the collective bargaining power of a much larger operation.

[00:02:55]By 1914, they had built their first receiving and packaging plant in Sacramento and introduced the label that would become one of the most recognized names in American grocery stores. The Blue Diamond symbol wasn't chosen by accident. Blue diamonds are considered the rarest in the world and the founders used that image to set California almonds apart from the Spanish and Italian imports that dominated the market at the time. By 1922, shelling and grading equipment went in. By 1929, a five-story processing plant went up to handle the growing volume. Over 2,000 growers had joined the cooperative by the end of the 1930s. And by 1940, the operation was processing 8,000 tons of almonds per year with production climbing even higher during World War II.

[00:03:49]To supply the armed forces, the name Blue Diamond Growers became official in 1980, and by 2021, the cooperative reported annual revenue of $1.59 billion.

[00:04:03]The plant at the center of this story sits on approximately 50 acres in the Midtown neighborhood of Sacramento. And its history goes back even further than Blue Diamond itself. The main building on the site was constructed in 1925, not by Blue Diamond, but by the California Packing Corporation as a fruit canning facility that was at the time one of the largest caneries in the world.

[00:04:29]Workers packed California tomatoes, peaches, pumpkins, beets, spinach, and carrots inside those brick walls. Pears arrived by steamboat from the Sacramento Delta. The plant dominated the region so completely that Sacramento earned the nickname the canery of the West.

[00:04:51]Operations shut down in 1932.

[00:04:55]Blue Diamond eventually absorbed the buildings, renovated the historic structure in 1983, and turned it into the heart of their Sacramento campus.

[00:05:05]Recognition came in 1984 when the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places for both its architectural character and its role in California's agricultural past. What stands there today isn't just a factory.

[00:05:20]It's a piece of American industrial history. And that's exactly what is closing. June 6, 2025 is when the announcement came and CEO and President Kai Bachmann delivered the explanation without softening it.

[00:05:36]The challenges of running a plant from these historical buildings has become too costly and inefficient. Streamlining our manufacturing plants is the right business move to further strengthen our marketleading position and bring increased value to our grower members.

[00:05:53]old buildings, rising maintenance costs, inefficiencies that had compounded over decades to a point where continuing simply wasn't viable.

[00:06:04]The plan called for moving manufacturing operations to Blue Diamond's newer facilities in Turlock and Celita, both located in California's Central Valley, closer to the growers who supply the almonds in the first place. The closure was designed in three phases. Phase 1 kicked off in September 2025 when roughly 10% of the plant's 632 employees departed. Phase 2 followed in March 2026.

[00:06:32]The final closure. The permanent shutdown of the 1,82 Sea Street address is set for June 12, 2026 with a War Act notice filed for the last 49 remaining employees on April 13, 2026. Bachmann addressed workers directly before the public announcement, telling them, "Even though most employees will not leave this year, we want to be transparent and tell our people as soon as possible."

[00:07:00]Blue Diamond backed that up with severance packages, outplacement support, relocation opportunities to other company facilities, and financial incentives for workers willing to stay through the transition period. None of that made the day any easier for the people who showed up to work. When local reporters from CAP radio went to the plant on the day of the announcement to speak with employees, the workers declined to comment. And the reason they gave was that they were afraid for their jobs.

[00:07:30]Now, there is a development that came out of April 2026 that adds a layer of nuance to this story. Blue Diamond announced it would retain approximately 90 jobs at the Sacramento site specifically for inshell almond processing. The equipment and storage infrastructure already in place made keeping that particular operation in Sacramento the most practical option.

[00:07:56]Retaining those operations in Sacramento is the most practical and least disruptive option at this stage of the transition. The company stated corporate headquarters stay in Sacramento as well along with the retail gift shop. But here's the thing. 90 jobs out of 600 is not a rescue.

[00:08:16]the large-scale manufacturing operations, the production floor work that generations of Sacramento families built careers around, that work is moving to the Central Valley. What remains is a fraction of what existed.

[00:08:31]The response from Sacramento's leadership landed on both sides of the emotional spectrum. Mayor Kevin McCarti thanked Blue Diamond for what he called 115 years of partnership, acknowledged the company as an iconic symbol of Sacramento's history in the agricultural manufacturing industry, and then turned quickly toward opportunity, pointing out that the site sits right next to the rail yards, Sacramento's major ongoing urban redevelopment zone, and calling the property primed for new life and new opportunity for our City Council member Phil Pluckabomb didn't pivot quite as fast. He said, "Blue Diamond is a place with really good longevity and added, "They have generations of people that have worked there. It's always heartbreaking when you aren't able to continue those opportunities for folks."

[00:09:24]That acknowledgement came alongside his own optimism about potential redevelopment, noting, "You could imagine an infinite amount of interesting and creative attractive uses for the 50 acres." Jack Lawrence, a director of sales and leasing at Capital Rivers, a Sacramento commercial real estate firm, went further with the opportunity framing, calling it a truly unique opportunity with significant inherent value. his one caution. As a long-standing industrial facility and former canery, the site will almost certainly need a thorough environmental assessment before development can begin.

[00:10:03]Blue Diamond settled air pollution charges with the EPA back around 1995, paying nearly $700,000 for exceeding pollution limits at this same facility.

[00:10:14]And any buyer will need to account for that history.

[00:10:18]Not everyone delivered measured optimism. And the voice that cut through the clearest belonged to someone who studies Sacramento's economy for a living.

[00:10:28]Dr. Sanjay Varsny, a finance professor at Sacramento State University and founder of Golden Stone Wealth Management, called the closure a wake-up call. And his words carry weight precisely because he isn't a political opponent looking for ammunition. He's an economist who has spent decades analyzing this region.

[00:10:49]Proof is in the pudding, Barney told ABC News. Blue Diamond walking away is just another sign that there's something wrong with how we are doing business here.

[00:11:00]High cost of living and a punishing regulatory environment were the culprits, he named, not aging buildings, and certainly not tariffs or international trade. On that question specifically, his position was blunt. It is not tariffs. Blue Diamond is an example of a company that we thought was domestic, was basically our own in our own backyard, something that we took pride in. When they leave, I think it is a wake-up call that something is wrong with us, the way we do business. What makes that assessment sting is the word us, not the building, not blue diamond, us.

[00:11:40]Here is the part of this story that almost nobody is telling, and without it, the closure looks like a simple business decision. Sacramento has been fighting to keep Blue Diamond from leaving for 30 years. Back in 1995, the company was already weighing its options, and local politicians saw the warning signs clearly enough to act. The city put together a package worth approximately $20 million in incentives to convince Blue Diamond to stay in Midtown Sacramento. That money bought 30 years. And now the move is happening anyway on a timeline the city cannot stop and on terms it cannot negotiate.

[00:12:23]$20 million.

[00:12:26]30 years and here we are. The story of Steven Gordon brings the human cost out of the abstract and into something real.

[00:12:36]Gordon owns Kadina Farm in Esparo, California, where his grandfather planted the first trees in 1971.

[00:12:43]And three generations of his family have sold almonds to Blue Diamond ever since.

[00:12:48]His reaction to the closure announcement wasn't anger or grief. It was the quiet uncertainty of someone who understands that markets don't care about loyalty.

[00:12:58]It's going to be something that we're going to have to wait and see. He said, "The market's so volatile right now.

[00:13:05]When a major processing facility relocates, that uncertainty travels all the way out to the orchards.

[00:13:12]Blue Diamond Growers is not going out of business, and it's worth being clear about that. The company continues operating. 3,000 almond growers across California will keep supplying product.

[00:13:24]The Turlock and Celita plants will absorb the manufacturing volume. 90 workers will keep processing inshell almonds on the Sea Street property. The corporate headquarters stays in Sacramento. What is ending is the manufacturing plant as Sacramento has known it. The one that traces its roots to 1910.

[00:13:45]That fed American soldiers during World War II. that employed the children and grandchildren of people who built careers inside those brick walls listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[00:13:59]Somewhere between 500 and 600 people are losing jobs at a company that was part of their family's story and a 53 acre piece of California history is going up for sale to whoever sees opportunity in it. Dr. Varsn's question whether this is an isolated operational decision or part of a pattern doesn't have a clean answer. What is clear is that Sacramento spent $20 million in 1995 to delay a conclusion it could not ultimately prevent and that the people now left holding that question are the workers who declined to comment on camera because they were afraid. The three generation farm family in Esparto watching the market shift beneath them and a city looking at 50 acres of its own history wondering what to put there next.

[00:14:51]Blue Diamond lasted 115 years in Sacramento. The city that once called itself the canery of the West now has an empty canery on its hands. And no amount of redevelopment optimism changes what was lost when those 600 workers got the news.

[00:15:09]If this story put something into perspective for you, share it with someone who is trying to make sense of where California's economy is heading.

[00:15:18]These closures don't happen in isolation, and they don't affect just the people who work inside the building.

[00:15:25]Thanks for watching.