An animal rendering plant in the Anson County town of Wadesboro will change how it transports its products. Darling Ingredients will lay off 51 employees around April 11, however, many of those employees have already accepted jobs with a third-party company to perform those services, according to Patrick Stoklas, senior counsel for the Irving, Texas-based company.
The facility employs 132 people, which include 44 drivers and seven managers, who will lose their jobs with Darling Ingredients, Stoklas says as part of a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed with the state.
Darling will contract with Arkansas-based J.B. Hunt to transport products, Stoklas says.
“Darling has already worked with J.B. Hunt at other Darling locations where similar terminations have taken place. In these situations, J.B. Hunt has hired a majority of the terminated drivers. Approximately 92% of terminated Darling drivers at these other locations have accepted new positions with J.B. Hunt,” Stoklas says in the written notice.
J.B. Hunt is making offers to terminated drivers in Wadesboro and 27 of them have already accepted the offer, Stoklas says.
All employees have been notified and bumping rights do not exist.
Darling Ingredients has more than 15,000 employees at more than 270 facilities. It turns edible by-products and food waste into animal feed, fertilizer, renewable energy and other products. It reported $5.7 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ending Dec. 28, compared to $6.8 billion the year before. Net income was $278.9 million last year, compared to $647.7 million the year before.
Darling shares opened Thursday at $40.12, and have traded between $32.55 and $48.39 in the past year. It has a market capitalization of almost $6.4 billion.