Pal-Item: Really Cool Foods shuts down

CAMBRIDGE CITY, Ind. — Really Cool Foods closed its doors for good today.

The company told workers, who had reported for their shift, to go home because the plant was closing.

In a press release sent shortly after 9 a.m., company president Steve West informed officials in Wayne County of the closing of the western Wayne County plant.

“Although we have received support from both state and county officials, as a result of increasing costs and continuing delays in anticipated sales, we were unable to sustain our business and forced to discontinue operations,” West said in the press release.

The closing will affect 131 employees, according to the company’s filing with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

The news rocked the Wayne County community.

“It’s never a positive development when a company has to make the decision to shut down and sell off its equipment,” said Tim Rogers, president of the Economic Development of Wayne County.

Rogers said he was unaware of the closing until West called him this morning, shortly before sending the press release.

“I knew what everybody else knew when they went through the (October) shutdown,” Rogers said. “I had been trying to set up a meeting with Steve West for about three weeks and had not been able to, which is not a good sign.”

Company officials said they will begin immediately trying to sell Really Cool Foods’ assets.

A phone call to West went unanswered this morning.

But in the press release, West said although officials have tried “aggressively” to sell the company over the past three months, “unfortunately, no parties stepped forward and the company’s lenders were unwilling to advance additional funds to all the company to continue to operate in the ordinary course of business.”

The company moved to the Gateway Industrial Park near Cambridge City in 2008 and moved its headquarters here a short time later.

But it has struggled to keep management, to build its employment numbers and to resolve other problems that have hounded the company over the past two years.

When it came here, company officials promised a $100 million investment in Wayne County and planned to employ 1,000 people in five to seven years.

Really Cool Foods never reached anywhere near that employment number.

Watch pal-item.com today for updates to this story.