Governor Of California LOSES IT As PepsiCo Closed Last Factory!

So about 150 workers will be out of a

job come the new year after PepsiCo

[music] announced production operations

will end as it plans to close its Fredo

lay plant in Orlando. This includes the

manufacturing and the warehouse

operations [music]

>> cuz this could have uh you know this

this is one of those things that could

have a a profound effect uh throughout

the community.

>> The governor of California loses it as

the PepsiCo plant shutdown exposes a

reality the state keeps trying to bury.

Yes, I'm talking about a 55-year

industrial backbone ripped out quietly

while officials look the other way. When

the last factory goes dark, what

collapses next is the illusion that

California is still in control.

>> A local union is now calling out the

company PepsiCo for unlawfully closing

its facility on 51st Street. Union

leaders say the company gave no warning

to employees. The union is proposing to

meet with a company this Wednesday

[music] for an explanation into the

reason why

>> the PepsiCo plant shutdown didn't come

with a warning. It happened quietly

which is exactly why it matters. After

55 years of non-stop production, the

Rancho Cucamonga Fredo Lelay factory

went dark in June 2025 and California

barely blinked. That silence wasn't

accidental, it was strategic.

>> The move impacts [music]

79 workers. In a statement from the

company, it says in part, "The decision

to no longer operate at 51st [music]

Street is a difficult one. This is a

more than 60-year-old building that has

physical limitations. Our top priority

is to support our employees during this

transition."

>> I came to the lunchroom and everybody's

there. I said, "Sit down." Everybody sit

down. Guy says, "Sorry, but uh we're

closing the plant. The plant has been

closed now." For 45 years, Juan Gonzalez

says he worked as a forklift [music]

operator. This wasn't a failing factory.

This wasn't an outdated demand. This was

a deliberate PepsiCo plant shutdown

carried out under the cover of

restructuring language. 432 workers were

cut loose. And here's the part that

should make people angry. Officials can

still say the site is operational

because warehouse and distribution

functions remain. That single

technicality allows the shutdown to be

softened, blurred, and buried.

Manufacturing jobs vanished, but on

paper, the location still exists. That's

how modern shutdowns work now. You don't

close a factory. You surgically remove

the good jobs and call it efficiency.

Yeah, they were ready to go to work,

Alex. They found out at about 5:45 this

morning that this decades old Pepsi

plant was going to be closed for good.

Pepsi says the building is pretty old.

The Rancho Cucamonga plant wasn't just

another building. It had been running

since 1970. Generations passed through

those doors. Families planned their

lives around those paychecks. This place

is tied to the origin story of Flamin'

Hot Cheetos, one of the most iconic

snack brands in the world. Pepsi says

the closure is driven by business needs.

The company says it will provide

transition assistance, career support,

and benefits to [music] employees who

are impacted.

>> And yet, when the PepsiCo plant shutdown

happened, it was treated like a

footnote. No acknowledgement of what was

lost. No accountability for what comes

next.

>> This is something that has been uh

extremely frustrating for many of the

workers here. Like you said, they showed

up to work and within uh they say just a

couple of minutes asked to go home and

try to [music] very quickly find a new

job.

This is where the pressure starts

building because this shutdown crashes

straight into California's favorite

talking point, green jobs. We keep

hearing [music] that the future is

cleaner, smarter, better, but the

present looks a lot like factories

closing and workers being discarded.

Food manufacturing should be one of the

safest industries in the state. People

don't stop eating during recessions.

Snacks don't disappear when markets

tighten. If even this sector can't hold

ground, something deeper is breaking. In

a statement, the [music] multi-billion

dollar company says its decision was

made to optimize the plant [music] by

turning into a scaled warehouse.

>> This wasn't an isolated move either.

PepsiCo has been trimming across North

America, New [music] York, Florida, now

California. But California is different

because it markets itself as

untouchable, as the future, as the

model. That's why this shutdown hits

harder. It exposes a gap between the

speeches and the ground reality

>> for good.

>> I'm in shock basically because uh you

know I didn't think this was going to

happen. You know, we were given no

notification [music]

and uh just I'm working Friday and then

come to work can't come to work Monday.

>> They told us that you know the plant is

not doing good. There's other facilities

around that's going to be closed.

>> And what happens to the workers? That's

where the urgency turns personal. 432

people didn't transition into green

careers. They didn't magically land

clean energy jobs. They got severance

and uncertainty.

Retraining sounds nice in policy

documents, but retraining doesn't

replace decades of seniority. It doesn't

replicate stable wages. It doesn't

protect families when rent is due.

What's dangerous is how normalized this

has become. These shutdowns are no

longer treated as emergencies. They're

framed as modernization, optimization,

progress. The language is smooth, but

the outcome is brutal. Communities lose

anchor employers, local economies

shrink, and the state moves on without

addressing the damage. Union reps say

the closure comes just months after

finalizing a new three-year contract

involving [music]

a little more than 70 union employees.

And recently, employees were told that

this Pepsi plant was doing well. If you

had asked me, "Is this facility going to

be open another 10 years?" I would have

looked you in the eye and unequivocally

said yes.

>> The PepsiCo plant shutdown should have

triggered alarms in Sacramento. Instead,

it barely registered because admitting

the cost means admitting trade-offs. It

means admitting that policy choices have

consequences. And it means facing an

uncomfortable truth. California isn't

just transitioning industries. It's

losing them quietly. This is how

industrial decline looks now. Not

explosions, not chaos. Silence.

factories stop expanding, then they stop

upgrading, then one day they stop. By

the time people notice, the decision was

made months ago in a boardroom far away.

Pepsi says employees will receive full

pay and benefits for the next 2 months.

But longtime employees like 29-year

employee Daryl Smith say more needs to

be given to him and his fellow workers.

>> For people that's been there for 20, 30

years,

give us our retirement early. people

that's been there to lower, place them

somewhere else.

>> If a 55-year food manufacturing plant

can vanish without a real public

reckoning, the next one will too, and

the next. Until the question isn't why

companies are leaving, but why anyone

was shocked when they did. Here's where

the story gets uncomfortable and

honestly a little absurd. Because the

PepsiCo plant shutdown wasn't a one-off

mistake. It wasn't a bad quarter. It