CSM Bakery Products will close its manufacturing center in Sugar Land by Oct. 1, laying off 163 workers, officials said. The Atlanta–based company sent a worker adjustment and retraining notification about the decision to the Texas Workforce Commission on April 28. Dennis Murphy, CSM vice president of communications, said the company decided to close the facility—located at 1 King Arthurs Court, Sugar Land—after an 18-month assessment of CSM’s global footprint. The company’s distribution center in Houston will remain open. “It just didn’t make sense for us to add additional investments [in Sugar Land],” he said. “The plan is to [close the facility] by the end of 2016.” Along with the Sugar Land location, Murphy said the company will also close two facilities in Esher and Ashington in the United Kingdom this year. Layoffs at the U.K. facilities will total 400-500 workers, he said. CSM sells products including breads, brownies, cakes, cookies and baking ingredients to retail and food service markets. With the reductions, the company aims to increase productivity, capabilities and capacity across the company, Murphy said. CSM announced April 27 it would make improvements to other aspects of the company, including equipment and infrastructure upgrades at locations in Dallas, Minnesota, California and the U.K., process improvements at its Utah facility and infrastructure and capacity improvements for ingredients operations in Atlanta. Murphy declined to say which products are made at the Sugar Land facility. As for its departing workers, he said CSM is looking for potential reassignments while others will receive severance packages. “We’re trying a few things,” he said. “We’d love the opportunity to find those people [a new position].”