Nearly 250 workers at the Frito-Lay plant in Rancho Cucamonga, California, are losing their jobs as the snack giant shuts down a facility that operated for close to 35 years. The closure, which unfolded in stages beginning in mid-2025, marks the end of a site long associated with the production of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and other popular snack lines in the Inland Empire.
A two-phase shutdown at 9535 Archibald Avenue
The timeline of the Rancho Cucamonga closure involves two distinct events that initially appear to conflict but together describe a phased wind-down. According to the Los Angeles Times, manufacturing operations at the campus ended in June 2025. That halt covered the production lines themselves, the equipment and shifts that turned raw ingredients into bagged snacks.
But the facility did not go dark all at once. A WARN Act filing dated February 10, 2026, as reported by NBC Los Angeles, listed an expected last day of June 6, 2026, for nearly 250 remaining employees. Those workers handled warehouse, distribution, and support functions that continued after the manufacturing lines stopped. The gap between the two dates shows that Frito-Lay kept a skeleton operation running for roughly a year before pulling out entirely.
Federal records confirm the site. An inspection record maintained by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration lists the facility at 9535 Archibald Avenue, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730, tying the employer name and address to the same location described in the WARN notice and local news coverage.
What the Rancho Cucamonga WARN filing reveals
California’s WARN Act requires employers with 75 or more workers to give at least 60 days’ notice before a mass layoff or plant closure. In San Bernardino County, these notices are tracked through a public-facing WARN dashboard that logs closures and large-scale layoffs by employer, location, and date. The February 2026 filing placed the Rancho Cucamonga site squarely in that county record, alongside other recent workforce reductions across the region.
The dashboard entry confirms that the Rancho Cucamonga operation is not a temporary furlough but a permanent shutdown. It also clarifies that the nearly 250 workers affected in 2026 represent the final group at the site, following earlier reductions when production ceased in 2025. However, the summary-level data does not spell out which specific job classifications were cut or how many of the affected employees, if any, were offered transfers to other Frito-Lay or PepsiCo locations.
No direct company statement explaining the business rationale has surfaced in available public records. PepsiCo, Frito-Lay’s parent company, has not released internal production data or confirmed whether output shifted to other plants. That absence leaves a significant gap: observers can see the closure happening but cannot verify from primary documents exactly where production moved or how the decision was made.
Local government’s role and limits
The layoffs land within a broader county system that is responsible for workforce and economic development. San Bernardino County’s main portal for public services links to departments overseeing employment, training, and business assistance; through this county directory, affected workers can access programs such as job-search support, skills workshops, and referrals to unemployment insurance administered at the state level.
At the same time, county officials have limited leverage over corporate decisions like the Frito-Lay shutdown. The WARN framework is primarily a notice requirement, not a tool that can force a company to keep a plant open. Local agencies can respond with rapid reemployment services, but they cannot require PepsiCo to maintain operations or dictate where the company consolidates production.
Unanswered questions about Inland Empire job losses
Several pieces of the story remain incomplete. The full text of the WARN filing has not been posted publicly on the San Bernardino dashboard in a form that independent readers can easily download and analyze, making it difficult to see detailed job titles, wage ranges, or whether any severance arrangements were reported. Without that level of granularity, the public record shows the scale of the layoffs but not the precise mix of roles being eliminated.
There is also no definitive documentation indicating how many of the Rancho Cucamonga workers live in the immediate city versus elsewhere in the Inland Empire, or how many households depend on the affected wages. That information gap complicates efforts to measure the closure’s ripple effects on local spending, housing stability, and small businesses that served plant employees.
Another open question is how the shutdown fits into Frito-Lay’s wider footprint in Southern California. Publicly available records confirm the Rancho Cucamonga address and the timing of the closure, but they do not map out which other facilities may have absorbed production or distribution duties, or whether the company plans new investments elsewhere in the region that could offset some of the job losses.
For now, the documented facts tell a narrower story: a long-running snack plant at 9535 Archibald Avenue has wound down in two stages, with manufacturing stopping in mid-2025 and the last warehouse and support positions scheduled to end in June 2026. The WARN notice process and federal inspection files anchor that narrative in official records, even as many broader economic and corporate-strategy questions remain unanswered for the workers and communities left behind.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
