On June 8, 2026, WK Kellogg Co (NYSE: KLG) filed a formal WARN notice with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development covering 117 permanent layoffs at its Memphis cereal plant on Frisco Avenue. The notice covers both union and non-union workers. Layoffs are scheduled to begin August 7, 2026 and conclude by October 2, 2026. The plant is scaling down rather than closing.
WK Kellogg Co first telegraphed reductions at the Memphis site in August 2024, framing the changes as part of a multi-year supply chain transformation. Company leaders cited the need to invest in newer equipment and shift production away from older plants. This week's WARN notice is the formal regulatory papering of that 2024 plan.
WK Kellogg Co is the cereal business spun off from the historic Kellogg Company in October 2023. The split separated the slower-growth North American cereal portfolio (Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Special K, Rice Krispies, Mini-Wheats) from the higher-growth snacks and international business, which now trades as Kellanova (NYSE: K). Kellanova is currently the target of a pending Mars Inc. acquisition. WK Kellogg Co operates roughly 3,300 employees across its cereal manufacturing footprint, and the Memphis Frisco Avenue plant has been one of the oldest active US cereal sites for decades.
This is a different shape of 2026 layoff than the AI-driven and bankruptcy-driven cuts dominating headlines this spring. There is no AI framing, no software automation story, no public CEO press tour. A 70-plus-year-old food manufacturing site is scaling down because the parent company is consolidating cereal production into newer, more capital-efficient facilities. WARN-papered, union-affected, with a multi-month wind-down timeline that gives workers and the city of Memphis advance notice. It is the legacy industrial form of workforce reduction that the tracker is built to capture alongside the AI-era cuts.