BATON ROUGE - Close to 50 jobs will be affected as a sugar packing facility in Gramercy plans to cease operations late next month.

A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification from the Louisiana Workforce Commission was released on Monday. It says about 49 jobs will be eliminated permanently with the September 30 closure of the Imperial Sugar packing facility.

The facility is located on Highway 641 in Gramercy. A newer facility was completed in Gramercy further down the road. A separate company located on the same site, Louisiana Sugar Refining, will remain open and in operation without being affected by the closure.

Imperial Sugar, a sugar company based in Sugar Land, Texas, was purchased in 2012 by Louis Dreyfus Co. LLC., a food processing company based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Imperial Sugar was founded in 1843.

“I’m saddened to learn about the closure of the Imperial Sugar packing facility, which will result in the loss of 49 jobs. Many, if not all, of the affected employees live within the local community,” Parish President Timothy Roussel said. “My administration is working closely with state officials to minimize the impact of this closure on all affected employees and their families.”

LWC’s Rapid Response team has already scheduled re-employment workshops for the plant’s affected employees. The parish president also said affected employees are encouraged to visit the St. James Business and Career Solutions Center located at 2631 Highway 20 inside the Courthouse Annex in Vacherie.