The Facility Opened Before Disney World
On November 4, 2025, Frito-Lay shut down its Orlando manufacturing plant and laid off 454 workers on the spot. Another 46 employees at a nearby warehouse will lose their jobs by May 2026.
The Silver Star Road facility had been making Lay’s, Doritos, and Cheetos since 1965, back when Orlando was just a small Florida city with no theme parks.
Now it’s gone, and the workers who kept it running for six decades are out looking for new jobs right before the holidays.
The closure is part of something bigger happening at PepsiCo, and the reasons behind it explain a lot about how Americans are eating differently now.
454 Workers Got Same-Day Layoffs
PepsiCo filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with Florida’s Department of Commerce on November 4, the same day it shut down the plant.
The 454 employees at the Silver Star Road facility, including packaging machine operators, maintenance mechanics, technicians, and general laborers, were terminated immediately.
The company also announced it would close a support warehouse on Parks Oaks Avenue by May 9, 2026, cutting another 46 positions. In total, 500 Orlando workers lost their jobs.
The Plant Made Chips Before Disney Existed
The Orlando Frito-Lay plant opened in 1965, the same year Frito-Lay merged with PepsiCo. Walt Disney World didn’t break ground until 1967 and didn’t open until 1971.
For more than half a century, the Silver Star Road facility produced some of America’s most popular snacks, including Lay’s potato chips, Doritos, Cheetos, and Tostitos. It served as a key distribution hub for all of Florida.
The plant employed about 490 people at its peak.
No Union Meant No Job Protection
None of the 500 affected workers in Orlando had union representation.
The WARN letter filed with the state noted that employees had no bumping rights, which would have let senior workers transfer into other positions.
Some Frito-Lay plants elsewhere have union contracts with the Teamsters or the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.
But more than 90% of Florida workers are non-union, and the Orlando plant was no exception.
Severance Came Instead of Notice
Because Frito-Lay gave workers no advance warning, the company provided 60 days of pay in lieu of the required notice period.
Employees also received financial planning support, outplacement services, and help with resumes and job searches. The company promised to hold a career fair for affected workers.
The 46 warehouse employees losing their jobs in May 2026 did not receive the same 60-day pay guarantee, though they will get transition assistance.
Snack Sales Dropped as Prices Rose
Frito-Lay’s North American sales volume fell 2% in the third quarter of 2025. The company’s worldwide food and beverage volume dropped 1% during the same period.
PepsiCo has raised prices on its snacks over the past few years, and consumers started pushing back. The company’s Q4 2024 revenue came in at $27.78 billion, slightly below the previous year’s $27. 85 billion.
Frito-Lay’s operating profit fell 11% in Q4 2024 and 7% for the full year.
Consumers Want Healthier Snacks Now
According to Innova Market Insights, one-third of global consumers increased their purchases of better-for-you snacks, while only 15% bought more traditional chips and snacks.
About 60% of consumers say they always look for healthier options when shopping.
Frito-Lay has responded by removing artificial colors and flavors from some products and using olive or avocado oil in others. The company also introduced smaller pack sizes for price-conscious buyers.
But the shift has still hurt sales.
Orlando Joins a Growing List of Closures
The Orlando shutdown is part of a wave of Frito-Lay plant closures across the country. In June 2025, PepsiCo closed a 50-year-old facility in Rancho Cucamonga, California, cutting 480 jobs.
In May 2025, it shuttered a plant in Liberty, New York, that made PopCorners, laying off 287 workers. A Detroit beverage plant partially closed in September 2025, eliminating 83 positions.
In 2024, four PepsiCo bottling plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Georgia closed, cutting another 400 jobs.
PepsiCo Built for Demand That Disappeared
CEO Ramon Laguarta addressed the closures during PepsiCo’s October 2025 earnings call.
He said the company had invested heavily in Frito-Lay capacity based on demand signals from 2023, but consumer behavior shifted by 2025. The company is now adjusting both assets and headcount to match the new reality.
CFO Jamie Caulfield, who announced his retirement during the same call, acknowledged that Frito-Lay’s performance had been subdued and said turnaround efforts were underway.
The Company Started Selling Property Months Ago
Signs of the pullback appeared before the closure announcement.
In June 2025, Frito-Lay sold nearly 47 acres of its Orlando properties, including a 72,000-square-foot warehouse at 998 N. John Young Parkway, about two miles south of the main plant.
The company continues to operate from that location as a tenant.
The sale suggested PepsiCo was already shrinking its Orlando footprint well before the November shutdown.
Production Moves to Bigger Regional Plants
Potatoes, cornmeal, cooking oils, and packaging materials that once flowed into the Orlando plant will now route to other PepsiCo facilities in the Southeast.
The company is consolidating production into larger, more automated plants as part of a strategy to cut costs and increase efficiency.
PepsiCo executives have described the closures as eliminating unnecessary manufacturing nodes no longer needed as capacity increased elsewhere.
Frito-Lay Still Runs 30-Plus U.S. Plants
Despite the closures, Frito-Lay continues to operate manufacturing facilities in 32 American cities. The company employs about 60,000 people nationwide and remains one of the largest snack producers in the country.
PepsiCo maintained its full-year outlook during its October earnings call, expecting low single-digit organic revenue growth and roughly unchanged core earnings per share.
The Orlando workers are gone, but the Doritos keep rolling off the line somewhere else.
This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.
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