Leaving California: Three More Major Businesses Close or Move Out of State

AENN

Blue Diamond, Leprino Foods, Anheuser-Busch closing/leaving CA

By Katy Grimes, December 22, 2025 9:03 am

Despite California Governor Gavin Newsom blatantly denying that California is losing residents and businesses to many other states, and that the state’s out-migration exceeds inbound migration, U-Haul’s January report showed that more Californians rented one-way U-Haul trucks to leave the state in 2024, than residents of any other state.

Chevron, X/Twitter, Space X, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Charles Schwab, and Toyota Motor North America, are just a few of the mega-businesses leaving California because of the state’s leftist/Marxist politics and regulatory environment.

In October the Globe reported that GAF Energy, which sells solar panels embedded in roof shingles, is leaving California for Georgetown, Texas.

They have three more names to add to that list.

Blue Diamond Growers, which is closing its Sacramento manufacturing plant, resulting in approximately 600 job losses, is moving up its 2026 departure. The company will transfer manufacturing operations from the 53-acre Sacramento site to facilities in Turlock and Salida, California.

Leprino Foods, the world’s largest mozzarella cheese maker, is closing its Central Valley dairy processing plant in Lemore, and moving to Lubbock, Texas. The company supplies cheese to Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Papa John’s. The closure will result in the loss of more than 300 jobs.

Anheuser-Busch is closing its Budweiser brewery in Fairfield, California.

Three more California businesses are leaving, all citing the high cost of doing business, and frustrations with expensive capital improvements to structures.

The Leprino plant, in Lemore since 1910, processes more than 1 billion pounds of mozzarella a year, according to Forbes.

They said the high operating costs in California were a driving force behind the decision.

They have already built and opened a “massive” new processing plant in Lubbock, TX, “in which the company has pledged to invest $1 billion over the next few years. The 850-000 square foot mozzarella plant is currently staffed with 300 full-time workers, with total employment expected to double next year.”

Blue Diamond, after 110 years in midtown Sacramento, announced that the Sacramento almond plant had fallen behind the times, and would be shut down sometime between late 2026 and mid-2027, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Anheuser-Busch announced they will sell their Newark, NJ facility and close the facilities in Fairfield, CA and Merrimack, NH in early 2026. A total of 238 employees will be impacted.

What does it say about high construction costs in California that Blue Diamond, Anheuser-Busch and Leprimo chose to close rather than renovate and/or rebuild.

Chevron announced their corporate relocation to Houston Texas from the Bay Area, where it has been based since 1879.

California’s historical businesses are closing, consolidating or moving, because they just don’t see a future in California.

As the Globe reported earlier this year, California ranks dead last once again in Chief Executive Magazine’s Best & Worst States For Business 2025 – the 14th year in a row. Tennessee ranks #1 once again, and now “The Volunteer State” is getting another of California’s oldest and one of the best known businesses in the country: After 77 Years in California, In-N-Out Is Moving to Tennessee.

In August, Bed Bath & Beyond announced that the company won’t open or operate retail stores in California, saying the decision “isn’t about politics – it’s about reality.”