CLEWISTON, Fla., Nov. 2 (UPI) -- U.S. Sugar said Tuesday it is consolidating its Florida operations, closing one plant and modernizing another.
U.S. Sugar, which bills itself as one of the nation's largest diversified, privately held agribusiness firms, said it was planning to close its facility in Pahokee, Fla., at the cost of 300 to 350 jobs.
The closure is set for 2007 and severance packages will be discussed in upcoming union negotiations, The Miami Herald reported.
The modernization and automation of the Clewiston, Fla., sugar processing plant over the next three years will create one of the world's largest state-of-the-art facilities, the company said. It will produce 38,000 tons of sugar a day.
The firm blamed the closure of the Pahokee plant on the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee on trade, automation and new technology.
Executive Robert Coker said under the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. borders would be completely open to Mexican sugar in 2008.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement, which still has to be ratified by Congress, "would allow an additional 100,000 tons of foreign sugar into an already oversupplied U.S. market," Coker said.
