WINSTON-SALEM — Foster will permanently close its Winston-Salem food-distribution facility, affecting 169 employees, according to a new state workforce notice.
The North Carolina Department of Commerce lists the action at 2900 Lowery St. as a permanent closure. The notice is dated Oct. 21, the state received it Oct. 22, and the effective date is March 5, 2027.
The same state record lists a separate permanent closure affecting 12 employees at Foster’s Greenville operation. Together, the two entries account for 181 North Carolina workers, both with the same March 5 effective date.
The closure reverses a recent expansion. In September 2024, Foster announced plans to occupy the 165,000-square-foot Lowery Street facility, add 165 jobs, retain 140 employees and invest about $6.25 million over five years. The company said the site would be fully online by March 2025.
Foster described the operation as a fresh-food warehousing and distribution hub with dry, refrigerated and frozen storage, six ripening rooms, packaging and fresh-cut capabilities. The company said the facility was designed to handle more than 50 million packages annually.
The permanent shutdown removes 169 jobs from Forsyth County and unwinds a project that had been promoted as a 305-job regional operation. The cited sources do not disclose severance terms, plans for the property or the disposition of its food-distribution assets.