Preface- The Sound of Silence

Preface - The Sound of Silence

    This morning, April 26, 2023, a childhood friend told me to check out an article in today's Al.com, which used to be the Birmingham News.

    Here is the text of the article:

Utz closing Birmingham Golden Flake factory: Beloved potato chips not going away

Updated: Apr. 26, 2023, 10:13 a.m.|    * Published: Apr. 26, 2023, 8:23 a.m.

By William Thornton | wthornton@al.com

Utz Brands has announced it is closing the company’s Golden Flake Birmingham manufacturing facility in July.

The decision means about 175 employees will be laid off from the 275 member workforce. About 100 will remain in distribution operations.

The company made the disclosure during an SEC filing on April 24. Pre-tax cash charges of approximately $3 million to $5 million are expected to be incurred because of the closure. 

 

In a statement, Utz Foods Vice President Kevin Brick said Utz “made the difficult decision to permanently close our manufacturing operations” in Birmingham.

“Notably, the Golden Flake brand remains an important part of Utz’s portfolio, and our product offerings and partnerships under this banner are not changing,” Brick said. 

We will continue to have a presence in Birmingham and will stay an active part of the community.”

Utz Quality Foods, based in Hanover, Penn., purchased Golden Enterprises, Golden Flake’s parent company, in 2016 for $141 million.

Golden Flake was founded in 1923 in the basement of a Hill’s Grocery store in north Birmingham.

In addition to flavored chips such as Sweet Heat, cheese puffs, cheese curls, tortilla chips and snack crackers are made at the historic Golden Flake factory in Birmingham.  

    After reading the article, I called my childhood friend and said, "Thank God Utz bought Golden Flake!"

    When I heard from another friend today about the article, I said, "The article says nothing about my father, who built Golden Flake up from almost nothing."

    When I told another friend about it, who is tuned in, I said, "Utz made its decision about the time I finished writing The Golden Flake Clown'sTale."

    The closing of the Golden Flake production facility in Birmingham was the sound of silence, as far as my father's family is concerned. As if, we never existed. But, we did exist, and I have told some of it in this book, which otherwise would be the sound of silence in its truest sense.

    Apologies to great writers, orderly writing, neat and tidy, my English teachers, law school professors, book editors, and critics. This here tale came to me in the ways it came to me: a composite of new and older writings. The Muse has her own ways the mind will never fathom. 

Sloan Young Bashinsky, Jr.

DOB October 7, 1942