Baldwin County Fee Chairman Henry R. Craig stated he and the opposite 4 county fee members are “very disenchanted” that Meals Service Companions Inc. has closed its doorways at its Milledgeville location.
“We noticed it as an incredible employment and financial improvement alternative in Baldwin County,” Craig advised The Union-Recorder throughout an interview final week.
The corporate, which opened its native facility within the former Bobby Parham Kitchen in Renaissance Park at Central State Hospital in Milledgeville two years in the past, had main operations in California and New York, in addition to Maryland.
Angelo Bizzarro of Meals Service Companions, who has served as CEO for almost 25 years since he based the corporate, introduced final month that the corporate filed for federal chapter in Delaware. A federal decide has since accredited the corporate’s request to hunt debt aid from its collectors underneath Chapter 7.
“Mr. Bizzarro had an incredible enterprise,” Craig stated. “And like so many companies, his firm had difficulties via COVID-19, hiring workers, with contracts and imposing these contracts, in addition to different issues that encompassed a giant a part of the enterprise: Milledgeville was the smallest half. It is all the opposite components that maybe performed the most important function in why Mr. Bizzarro and his firm needed to file for chapter.”
Craig stated one other downside, like many companies in america since COVID-19, was the truth that Meals Service Companions Inc. was dealing with provide difficulties.
“Simply take that and enlarge it throughout the nation amongst totally different firms,” Craig stated. “That is been a serious downside for a lot of firms and it is nonetheless a serious downside right this moment for a lot of firms right here within the US and in overseas nations.”
Craig identified that such provide issues additionally create different issues akin to labor shortages and so forth.
“We have been all huge dreamers on this venture and we pray for the success of this endeavor right here in Milledgeville and Baldwin County,” stated Craig. “The marketing strategy didn’t match the circumstances of our nation and our world on the time.”
The fee chairman stated he and different commissioners weren’t the one ones disenchanted to listen to the information about Meals Service Companions.
“There are lots of folks in our neighborhood who’re extraordinarily disenchanted, together with workers who labored at native services,” Craig stated. “I actually, actually needed the Milledgeville operation to succeed. They advised me that inside their chapter technique they needed Milledgeville and Baldwin County to be the perfect survivors. However the chapter decide disagreed.”
Because the firm’s chapter submitting, workers who had been working on the native facility however are now not there haven’t acquired paychecks for greater than three weeks.
A lot of these workers declare they’re owed as much as $three,000.
Though they hope that someday they may obtain the cash they earned, a number of former workers don’t imagine that they may ever see a dime.
“I hate that this occurred to them; I actually do,” Craig stated. “It is horrible.”
Craig stated that whereas issues is probably not wanting good proper now, he’s hopeful that one other firm will quickly be curious about buying the Bobby Parham Kitchen Facility and making it successful.
“It is an incredible constructing and there is lots of trendy tools as effectively,” Craig stated. “I’ll stay optimistic that one thing good will come out of all of this.”
