Delaware-based chicken processor Allen Harim Foods is closing its Cordova, MD plant in July and consolidating operations to one central location in Delaware. The closure will impact approximately 300 employees at that facility, who will be offered jobs at the company’s other locations.

Steve Evans, CEO of Allen Harim, says a combination of factors were weighed in the decision to close the facility including its age, a shift in the company’s product mix and a desire to improve the company’s competitive position to assure greater efficiency.

“We are very grateful to our Cordova-based employees, some of whom have been with us for a very long time,” says Evans. “We will do everything possible to help them continue their employment with us or to help them find other opportunities.”

Much of the processing equipment at the Cordova facility will be moved to the company's Harbeson, DE plant in the coming months. In the last two decades, the Cordova plant has processed about 600,000 chickens a week, primarily rotisserie chicken and whole bird packaging, for markets in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.

Allen Harim Foods currently employs 1,800 people in the US and works with more than 230 independent growers and 20 company farms across the Delmarva Peninsula. The consolidation of processing operations will not affect any poultry growers in Maryland, Delaware or North Carolina.