US (ME): Backyard Farms finishes planting new crop this week

According to an article on Bagordailynews.com, Backyard Farms has brought back nearly half its furloughed workers and expects to have tomatoes back on grocery store shelves by the beginning of 2014. The company expects to complete the replanting of its entire crop of half a million tomato plants by the end of the week, Michael Aalto, a company spokesman, told the Bangor Daily News. As a result, it is back to employing between 60 and 70 people, he said. “We have about half the new crop planted, and are getting the second half of the crop planted this week.”

The number of employees will increase incrementally over the next few months as the crop becomes ready to harvest, package and ship to customers, Aalto said. The employee total should be back to roughly 200 by January, he said.

Aalto said the company isn’t worried about concerns that it lost market share during its absence. “Our customers have been very supportive in this period,” he said. “We continue to stay in touch with them. We didn’t say, ‘Hey, we’re having some issues. We’ll be back next year.’ We’re in regular communication with them.”

Source: bangor daily news