Safeway is winding down its commercial bread plant in Richmond, California, ending a long-running piece of its bakery supply chain. A California WARN notice filed October 20 lists 92 affected workers at the facility, which supplies bakery products for Safeway stores.
What is confirmed about the Richmond bakery closure
The facility is at 905 South 34th Street in Richmond, in Contra Costa County. State WARN data reviewed through California WARN tracking databases lists the site as a permanent closure, with 92 workers affected and an effective date of December 20, 2026. SFGATE also reported that Safeway’s notice was dated October 20.
SFGATE reported that the Richmond plant opened in 1965, which means the bakery operation has been running for 61 years. The San Francisco Chronicle separately reported that Safeway plans to close the Richmond bread plant on December 20, citing the filing with California regulators. Those reports align on the worker count and the facility address.
A Safeway spokesperson, Sarah Holland, told SFGATE that a limited number of employees would be offered other jobs. The company did not say how many openings are available, and it did not publicly explain why the plant is being shut down. Because of that, it is not yet clear how many of the 92 workers will leave the company and how many may transfer.
What the shutdown means for bread production and shoppers
This is a production plant, not a retail supermarket, so the Richmond address is not a store closure for customers. The immediate change is in Safeway’s back-end bakery network, where the site has been making bread and other bakery goods tied to the chain’s Northern California operations…