Buitoni to Close Danville Pasta Plant: 251 Workers Affected December 28
Buitoni USA will permanently close its pasta plant in Danville, Virginia, on December 28, 2026, ending all 251 jobs at the facility. The company disclosed the plan in a WARN notice filed October 28, 2026, and confirmed it to Danville city officials, who received the notice directly from the company.
The closure covers every position at the plant at 201 Airside Drive. According to the notice, all 251 separations are expected to occur on December 28, the day the plant closes. Workers are being told individually or through their union representative. Because the whole facility is closing, the notice states there are no bumping rights — no position to transfer into at the site.
The filing, in brief
- Employer: Buitoni USA LLC (Buitoni Food Company)
- Facility: 201 Airside Drive, Danville, Virginia — a 240,000-square-foot plant
- Notice date: October 28, 2026
- Effective date: December 28, 2026
- Workers affected: 251
- Event type: permanent closure
- Union: United Steelworkers Local 9555
- Roles affected include production and sanitation technicians, loaders, mechanics, filling mixer operators, and warehouse, quality-control, and administrative staff
The timing matters. October 28 to December 28 is 61 days — one day more than the 60 days of advance notice the federal WARN Act requires for a plant closing of this size. The notice was signed by Buitoni USA chief executive Joe Faro and sent to Danville's mayor, as the law requires for notice to local government.
The notice gives no reason for the shutdown, and it spells out no severance or retraining terms. Those details, if any, would come through the company or the union, not the filing itself.
A plant with a long history in Danville
The Danville plant opened in the late 1980s under Nestle, making Buitoni refrigerated pastas and sauces along with Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough. At its busiest it routinely employed more than 500 workers — roughly twice the 251 on the payroll at closing.
Ownership has changed hands twice in recent years. Nestle sold the Buitoni brand in North America; private-equity firm Brynwood Partners took it over, and in 2024 The Artisan Chef Manufacturing Company, led by Joseph Faro, acquired Buitoni Food Company. The company has said production will consolidate at Artisan Chef's newly retrofitted facility in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Where it sits in Virginia's 2026 numbers
Buitoni's 251 is the second-largest Virginia WARN filing noticed since September, behind only Owens & Minor's 419-worker closure in Toano, effective November 25. It is also one of the larger Virginia filings of the year. Virginia has recorded 68 WARN notices covering 8,477 workers so far in 2026, according to Layoff Atlas, and 75 official filings covering 9,000 workers in the last 365 days. The state's newest official notice is dated October 30, 2026.
Virginia sits third among states in the current 90-day window, with 2,556 reported workers, behind California (22,043) and Washington (17,333). Nationally, the registry holds 680 notices covering 61,488 reported workers, with 29 worker counts unavailable. Figures were last updated November 13, 2026.
Fifteen Virginia notices still have future effective dates. The weeks ahead are busy: Bechtel Power's 200 workers in Reston on November 16, Owens & Minor's 419 in Toano on November 25, Carry-On Trailer's 179 in Montross on November 29, General Dynamics Information Technology's 153 in Herndon on December 30, and The Washington Post's 118 in Springfield on December 31 — the same week Buitoni's 251 jobs end.
What to keep in mind
A WARN notice is a report of a plan, not a confirmed count of job losses. The Buitoni filing says all 251 positions will be separated on December 28, and the closure is described as permanent, but the filing itself does not say what, if anything, workers were offered in severance, or whether any were offered roles at the Lawrence facility. The plant's workforce is represented by United Steelworkers Local 9555, which is the channel for those questions.
For Danville, the closure ends nearly four decades of pasta production at the Airside Drive site. The 251 workers account for about 3 percent of Virginia's 8,477 reported workers in WARN notices this year — a small share of the state total, and a large share of one city's manufacturing base.
Data source: Layoff Atlas.
