Mexican food giant Ruiz Foods lays off 176 Calif. workers

Frozen Mexican food giant Ruiz Foods has announced 176 layoffs at a facility south of Fresno, the second round of California layoffs since the company moved its headquarters to Texas two years ago.

Ruiz Foods submitted a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification on Friday that indicated 170 employees at a Dinuba plant would lose their jobs on Nov. 4. Six employees were laid off between Sept. 2 and Sept. 9, according to the WARN notice reviewed by SFGATE. 

“This difficult decision impacts valued members of our team and is necessary to better align production capacity with anticipated customer demand,” Kimberli Carroll, Ruiz Foods president and CEO, said in a statement. The news release did not elaborate further on details surrounding the layoff decision.

Ruiz Foods, which is best known for its frozen taquitos and frozen burritos under its brands El Monterey and Tornados, opened in 1964 with a small warehouse in Tulare, according to the business website. In 1990, the company opened a larger facility in Dinuba and later expanded with a plant in Texas in 2005 and a facility in South Carolina in 2015. The company is widely considered the largest manufacturer of Mexican food in the country and reached $1 billion in revenue by 2021. Ruiz Foods moved its headquarters from Dinuba to Frisco, Texas, in 2024. 

The Dinuba facility, which employs 1,400 workers, will remain open, according to the WARN notice. Ruiz Foods said in a statement that the Dinuba plant is a “critical part of Ruiz Foods’ manufacturing network” and that the company would continue to invest in the facility. 

The recent layoffs come two years after Ruiz Foods announced that 215 employees would be laid off at a facility in Tulare, around 25 miles south of Dinuba. The company said at the time that it had outgrown the plant and would allow some employees to move to their Dinuba facility. 

“After 20 years of services, we have determined that the facility is too small and requires substantial capital investment to meet our manufacturing needs or remain a viable part of the Ruiz Foods network,” the company said in a statement.