"Hearthside Foods responds to New York Times investigation about underage workers", 10 Mar. 2023

... For a generation, Hearthside Food Solutions and its predecessor companies have been an important part of the Grand Rapids community. We have been a reliable employer built on a foundation of mutual respect with our team members ... .

When the New York Times reported that underage workers who may have used falsified documents were hired by staffing agencies, and later assigned to temporarily work at places like and including Hearthside, it came as a shock and major disappointment to us.

The reporting suggested clear violations of our policies and actions that were in direct contrast with our values. To be clear, Hearthside has a strict policy against employing individuals under the age of 18. Nor do we use staffing agencies that hire people under the age of 18 to work in our facilities, even on a temporary basis ... .

We will only work with staffing agencies who are transparent partners to us and who commit to these additional requirements. In one instance where we identified process concerns related to hiring practices, we suspended them ... .

We are committed to cooperating with the agencies investigating these issues ... .