Charleroi food processing plant to close; 252 jobs lost

A financially troubled Charleroi-area food processing company plans to close at the end of the month, eliminating 252 jobs in that mid-Mon Valley area where the economy is reeling from the recent losses of a glass-producing plant and a pasta-making plant.

Fourth Street Barbecue Inc. started laying off workers at its two sites Oct. 9 and will continue until Oct. 31, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.

The workers losing their jobs are at the Fourth Street Barbecue packing division plant in Speers and its Fourth Street Foods plant in nearby Fallowfield.

Fourth Street Foods, whose Speers plant is registered with the state as the corporate address, focuses on making frozen food products for private-label retailers and food service businesses. It focuses particularly on bowl meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks and sandwich assembly products, according to its website.

David Barbe Sr., company owner, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. An employee said no one at the Speers plant could discuss the business’ closing.

Fourth Street Barbecue anticipates it will be placed into state receivership and the company’s lenders will appoint a receiver that could result in the permanent closing of the plants. That’s according to the notice filed by Michael T. Von Lehman, president of Pittsburgh-based Meridian Management Partners. Lehman’s firm provides corporate restructuring and turnaround consulting to financially distressed companies.

Fourth Street Barbecue filed the notice just one day before the layoffs were to begin. The WARN Act requires that companies provide workers with a 60-day notice of a plant closing or mass layoff for businesses with more than 100 employees, excluding new workers with less than six months on the job.

Lehman, who informed the state he would represent Fourth Street Barbecue in the plant closing, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

“It’s devastating to us. It’s tough on all of us,” said Charleroi Council President Kristin Hopkins-Calcek.

Charleroi lost its Anchor Hocking glassware-producing plant in April, when its private equity owner shutdown operations and moved production of its Pyrex, Corelle Brands and Corning products to Lancaster, Ohio, eliminating about 270 jobs.

Anchor Hocking announced in September 2024 it was closing the former Corning glass plant, which had been in operation for 132 years.

The Quality Pasta Co. plant in Charleroi also closed more than a year ago.