John Lindt

For the Times-Delta

While summer is the season of ice cream, winter is not.

Tulare and Bakersfield Haagen-Dazs ice cream plants will temporally lay off upward of 1,000 workers. The layoffs begin this month and could last all winter. The two Valley locations did the same mass layoff last year.

Ice cream sales during the winter months are particularly slow and the trend year-over-year, is not their friend, officials said.

State figures show California ice cream production was off 10 percent from 2016 to 2017. California Department of Food and Agriculture numbers show overall ice cream production in the state is down 4.5 percent this year versus 2017.

Some explain the downward trend in recent years to more customer demand for lower fat, lower sugar products or non-dairy ice cream.

Haagen-Dazs's parent company, Nestle, employs 769 people in Bakersfield and 273 in Tulare, according to a state layoff notice.

Company officials declined to comment on Tuesday and security guards asked Visalia Times-Delta staff to leave the Tulare location.

'Uncle Green’

Another company will be remodeling an old industrial building on the outskirts of Woodlake in coming months to grow and distribute marijuana.

Uncle Green, the 7.7-acre project will be located at the southeast corner of Highway 216 (Avenue 344) and Road 196, north of Visalia.

According to an environmental impact report released by the city in October, the Uncle Green project would refurbish a former pipe manufacturing complex. Tenant improvements to the abandoned pipe manufacturing facility,116,250 total square-feet of space includes 27,000 square-feet of growing rooms, 77,000 square-feet of flower rooms,12,250 square-feet of office and other operational rooms and construction of an additional 44,000 square feet of cultivation space.

The project would employ 10 to 15.

Jason Waters, Woodlake city planner, says the Uncle Green partners, Sabrina Lalani and Moe Essa, are also buying another 17.8 acres on the western edge of town at Road 204 and Avenue 344.

äThey plan on removing the olives and building a new industrial park in Woodlake. The city recently agreed to sell them the land, beating out a rival bid for the same property by another firm, for exactly the same bid — $1.7 million.

Another project in town — 7 Points — involves an old packing house also on the west end of Woodlake, which has been annexed into the city. It too will be a future cultivation and manufacturing facility for cannabis.

The buildings are currently being remodeled.

Premium Extracts recently relocated their project from Hanford to Woodlake due to restrictions in Kings County to allow only medical-use pot distribution. Woodlake allows both recreational and medical use cannabis business.