In this week’s Food Exec Brief, we’re covering:
- Food and beverage companies cut 29,693 jobs through September, up 76% from last year, as Nestlé and PepsiCo announced plant closures this week.
- USDA’s surprise corn yield estimate sent December futures down 4.1%, while cargo theft losses per incident increased despite fewer Q2 incidents.
- Texas sued Nestlé’s Gerber for $10M+ over heavy metals in baby food, and the FSMA 204 traceability rule is becoming a customer expectation ahead of its 2028 deadline.
Consolidations, closures, and cuts
Food and beverage manufacturers announced 29,693 job cuts through September 2026, up 76% from the same period in 2025. August alone brought 7,982 cuts, mostly from Tyson closing three beef facilities. September added 7,326 more. Campbell’s, Amy’s Kitchen, Diageo, and Sapporo USA were also among those that announced closures or layoffs. (Learn more)
Nestlé announced its Solon, Ohio factory will stop production by Q3 2027, moving pouch manufacturing for Lean Cuisine and Hot Pockets to Gaffney, South Carolina. The Solon campus had 780 employees in 2024, when 216 layoffs were already announced. Nestlé called building on existing capacity elsewhere “the most sustainable path forward.” (Learn more)
PepsiCo closed its Knoxville, Tennessee bottling plant this week with 112 layoffs across manufacturing, maintenance, and warehouse roles. CEO Ramon Laguarta has said “everything that is not related to growth will not be part of the company” as North America beverage volume fell 2% last quarter. (Learn more)
Capital is shifting from square footage to equipment. PMMI projects the US packaging equipment market will hit $12.2 billion in 2026, up 4.5%, with food accounting for 44% of purchases. PMMI projects shipments will rise another 6.8% in 2027. Tariff uncertainty stalled proposals in 2025, and those orders are now converting. PMMI’s José Izquierdo noted that the projects were there, but the orders weren’t. (Learn more)
Corn prices decrease, and cargo theft targets seafood
USDA’s October crop report raised the 2026 US corn yield to 181.2 bushels per acre, up from 178.5 in September and the largest September-to-October increase since 2005. Total production is estimated at 16,034 million bushels, up 1.5% from the prior month. December corn futures fell 4.1%, settling at $4.79¾ per bushel, after running up 29% from June to a contract high of $5.18. The USDA could revise the figure in its November 10 report, so the 181.2 is provisional. (Learn more)
CargoNet reported a 26% year-over-year drop in total supply chain thefts in Q2 2026, and food and beverage incidents fell as well. But pilferage (partial cargo theft) accounted for 46% of Q2 incidents, up from 37% in Q1. And losses per incident are increasing. California accounts for 34% of US incidents, and Texas is 18%. Seafood is an emerging target, replacing beverages on the priority list. CargoNet’s advisory notes that “the current decline should therefore not be interpreted as a significant reduction in risk.” (Learn more)
Nestlé’s Gerber sued for heavy metal contamination
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Nestlé’s Gerber brand this week, seeking more than $10 million in penalties over alleged heavy metal contamination in baby food sold between 2017 and 2019. The lawsuit claims Gerber’s own tests showed toxic levels of lead, cadmium, and arsenic and that the company deceived consumers about product safety. Gerber said its products meet FDA limits and that heavy metals cannot be fully eliminated from the food supply. The suit follows a 2025 Texas investigation into Gerber and Plum Organics, a 2021 congressional inquiry into heavy metals in baby food, and September testing by Consumer Reports that flagged concerning inorganic arsenic levels in several brands. (Learn more)
McCormick is tracking four simultaneous FDA developments, and food manufacturers in its supply chain should be too. The FDA’s forthcoming ultra-processed food definition is what McCormick’s VP of regulatory affairs called potentially “transformational.” The agency also aims to remove all FD&C artificial colors by the end of 2027 (Red No. 3 is already banned) and is proposing to make the GRAS approval process mandatory, extending FDA review to packaging materials, not just ingredients. Front-of-pack labeling requiring a “nutrition info box” covering saturated fat, sodium, and added sugar is also proposed, with an uncertain timeline. (Learn more)
The July 2028 enforcement date for the FDA’s FSMA 204 traceability rule is the wrong horizon to plan around. Retailers and restaurants subject to the same 24-hour records requirement are expected to write supplier expectations into contracts before regulators get there. The two-year record retention period means that if you shipped a covered food product to a buyer within the past two years, you may need to produce those records on 24 hours’ notice, even after the relationship ends. The 2025 Cyclospora outbreak, which sickened 12,883 people across 21 states, shows what happens when lot tracking breaks at a split, manufacturing run, or distribution regrouping. (Learn more)
