Interview with a Bimbo Truck Driver

This is an update regarding the recent closure of 13 Bimbo bread and baked-goods outlet stores in Southern California. About 5 of those stores were in San Diego County, located in north, south, east, west, and inland cities. (A March 30 Stringer article reported the closures.)

This morning, April 12, I happened upon a friendly Bimbo driver (name withheld) servicing a tiendita in Rainbow. Asked about the closures, he told me they were because of “overhead,” such as rent and the cost of store employees’ union wages and benefits. The company hasn’t given their employees an official reason for the closures, but the driver said they believe it was because the stores were no longer considered profitable.

The driver also explained what is now happening to all the leftover Bimbo products. He denied that they are being wholesale marketed in Mexico. Instead, the driver told me on “return to the depot” items are “counted, then sent to the dump.” Perhaps, he said, “Fed to cows or pigs.”