WHEELING, W.Va. — According to Barry Allen, the President of The Ziegenfelder Company in Wheeling, nothing is completely back to normal following a devastating fire at its downtown facility but things sure are close.
Friday marked one year since a three-alarm fire gutted the company’s production facility.
Officials from the company, which is known nationally for production of Budget Saver twin pops, hosted an anniversary event to celebrate all the efforts from employees and to thank the first responders that responded to the fire.
“You can have a solemn moment, we’ve kind of thought about that. Then we thought that things are okay. We are doing okay,” Barry Allen, the President of The Ziegenfelder Company told MetroNews.
“Let’s make this a positive thing and say thank you to the people that helped us.”
Allen remembers that the day like it was yesterday. The fire broke out around 10:30 a.m. that Thursday morning in near sub-zero temperatures.
Wheeling firefighters were seen with chunks of hanging from their fire suits and helmets while battling the blaze for five hours.
“When you are watching your company burn before your eyes and you have 300 employees, you are thinking what does this mean for them,” Allen said. “Obviously, it means something for you personally but what does it mean to you, what does it mean for the community, what does it mean?”
For the company, it meant losing its oldest building, one-third of the production line, portions of its offices, the maintenance department, all tools, and some lockers.
Allen said the company is in the midst of a building a new 18th street building in the same spot where the old one burnt down. It hopes of getting its mixing lines back to 100 percent.
The company currently runs five production lines every day but wants back to seven lines, which was seen before the fire.
However, even with the drop of production lines, Allen said from an employee standpoint they have never been better. Hours after the fire, leaders for the company went to their “war room” and came up with a plan. Allen said the company did not have to lay off any of their 160 employees in Wheeling and more than 100 are still at the plant one year later.
He credits a “resilient room” of employees from the maintenance department, operations, production, transportation, logistics, and freezer staff. The group is so tight they are known as the “Zieggy Tribe.”
“One of the biggest things is as much as we would have hoped to be back producing product quickly, I don’t think the most positive person in the world would have believed in 14 days we would have been producing product,” Allen said.
Friday’s events of brining care baskets to local firefighters and speaking with employees at the company’s Chino and Denver facilities was not the only thank you event that Ziegenfelder’s has held. In July, the multi-million dollar frozen treat company held a thank you event to the community for reaching out to employees for weeks after the fire.
No one was injured in the blaze.
Thank you to The Ziegenfelder Company for thinking of us one year later! We’re proud to serve our city! pic.twitter.com/lBgr3CTyRy
— Wheeling, WV Fire (@WheelingFD) January 31, 2020