Hallmark Cards Shuttering Kansas Printing Plant

KANSAS CITY, MO—Hallmark Cards will shut down its manufacturing plant in Topeka, KS, resulting in 300 lost jobs as it consolidates its Kansas operations at remaining facilities in Lawrence and Leavenworth. The Topeka facility will close by the end of 2013.

Greeting card and envelope production will move from the company’s Topeka Production Center to its manufacturing facility in Lawrence, KS. Production of specialty items such as stickers, ribbons and bows will transfer from the Lawrence Production Center to Hallmark’s facility in Leavenworth, KS.

The greeting card company said the number of employees at Kansas plants will drop from its current level of 1,300 to roughly 1,000 when the consolidation is concluded at the end of 2013. The Topeka plant, which opened in 1943 and currently employs 500, produces about a third of all Hallmark greeting cards.

Pete Burney, Hallmark's senior vice president who oversees production, told the Associated Press that the company remains bullish on the future of printed cards, of which the industry sells 13 million per day. He noted that social media has cut into greeting card sales.

Hallmark said that hourly employees at all three locations will be offered the opportunity to accept a financial incentive to assist them in voluntarily transitioning out of the company.