A Longtime Factory Just Went Quiet, and Nearly 100 Workers Are Wondering What Comes Next

Mission Foods has stopped production at its longtime tortilla factory in Pueblo, Colorado, and plans to permanently close the facility on October 13, 2026, according to the company’s WARN notice and local coverage of the shutdown. The closure affects 90 employees at the plant, ending a food manufacturing operation that traces its Pueblo roots back decades.

For grocery shoppers, the immediate issue is less about empty shelves than about the local food economy behind a familiar refrigerated and bread-aisle product. In Pueblo, the shutdown means a tortilla plant that once connected local jobs to a national grocery brand has gone quiet.

Production stopped in August, with layoffs set for October

Mission Foods halted production at the Pueblo plant on August 14, 2026, and filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notice with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment showing a plant closure affecting 90 workers. Reporting from the Colorado Springs Gazette said layoffs are slated to begin October 13 and all separations are expected to be completed by October 27.

The facility is on Santa Fe Drive in Pueblo, according to the reference reporting. UFCW Local 7, the union representing workers there, said employees were called to a plant-wide meeting on August 14 and told the facility would stop operating immediately. The union said some workers had spent more than four decades at the plant.

Mission Foods has described the decision as difficult but, based on the source material provided, has not publicly given a specific reason for shutting this facility. The notice described the action as a closure, and the reporting indicates the notices are final, with an effective layoff date of October 13, 2026.

Pueblo workers face the sharpest impact, and some details are still unsettled

The workers most directly affected are in Pueblo, where the plant has been part of Mission Foods’ operations since the company acquired locally owned Candy’s Tortillas in 1994, according to the source material. The factory itself dates to the 1950s, when Candelario “Candy” Estrada and Cedelia “Sadie” Estrada began making tortillas for local customers.

Although production has already ended, employees are expected to continue receiving pay and benefits through the official closure date in October, according to the reference reporting. That gives affected households a short bridge, but not certainty about what comes after the final separation dates later in the month.

Some unionized employees may be able to displace more junior workers at Mission Foods distribution centers in Pueblo or Aurora, a process often called bumping rights. The source material says nonunion employees do not have the same rights. Mission Foods has not released a broader public breakdown of how many workers, if any, may stay with the company through those transfers.

The closure ends a local food manufacturing chapter

What is confirmed is the scale of the loss for Pueblo’s food production base. UFCW Local 7 said the closure came without advance warning to workers or the union, and union leaders criticized the company’s handling of the decision. The Gazette reported that Local 7 President Kim Cordova tied the closure to what she described as years of underinvestment at the plant.

For home cooks, there is no official notice in the source material that Mission Foods tortillas will disappear from store shelves in Colorado. The stronger, verified impact is local: fewer manufacturing jobs tied to a product many families buy every week, and one less food plant operating in Pueblo.

The closure also ends a long run for a facility linked to Pueblo’s tortilla-making history. By the dates in the source material, the site’s story stretches from a family tortilla business in the 1950s to Mission Foods ownership beginning in 1994, and now to a shutdown with layoffs beginning October 13, 2026.