Cardboard boxes stacked outside of Harker's in Le Mars signal the end of an era. The company, which currently employs 28 people in Le Mars, is closing Friday. [Click to enlarge]

Harker's, a food service company that began with a meat market started by George Harker in 1906, will have its last day Friday, according to Harker's president Jim Harker.

Cardboard boxes fill the front lawn of the Le Mars corporate headquarters building at 801 Sixth St. S.W.

Employees are cleaning the building this week.

"Our last production day was last Thursday," one said on Thursday morning. "This is the end of Harker's in Le Mars."

Friday will be the last day on the job for those remaining 28 employees.

"We were too small in a changing marketplace," Jim Harker said in a phone interview Thursday morning from his office in Lincoln, Neb.

Future business dealings are uncertain at this point.

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"There's a great facility in Le Mars and a proven workforce that can add value," Harker said. "I believe that somebody will take advantage of that."

At its apex in 1989, the Le Mars-based food service giant ran production centers in Le Mars, Orange City and Sioux Center and employed 1,500 people, according to Stan Dickman, of Le Mars, former senior vice president of Harker's.

The out-of-town facilities were sold, but in 2003 during a transition time, the company employed about 550 in production, delivery and sales, Dickman said.

That number settled a bit by the time Dickman left the company in 2007, but the employee force was still about 400 people strong.

Harker's made two cutbacks in 2007, one in June and one in November.

"A lot of (the impact on Le Mars) has already taken place with the gradual reduction of the workforce and the sale of the sales organization last November," Dickman said.

Harker's began in 1906 when cattle producer George Harker opened a meat market in Le Mars' downtown, according to Jim Harker.

The business passed to Vincent Harker, then Jack Harker in 1950.

Harker's turned a page and became a foodservice company in 1954 by adding a truck route in Le Mars' 50-mile radius.

The company grew for the next three decades, adding a second and third meat processing plant in Orange City and Sioux Center, then the Harker family sold it to Holly Farms in 1986. That same year, Jack retired.

Tyson Foods bought out Holly Farms, along with Harker's, in 1989.

A year later, Harker's Distribution, Inc. picked up Tyson Foods' distribution business, and operated independently since then.

Then in April 2006, the Harker family - Jack's children, the fourth generation of the family in the meat processing business - bought back controlling interest in the Le Mars company.

They announced that year that they served more than 15,000 foodservice customers from facilities in Denver, Colorado, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Le Mars.

The company, which processed and distributed beef, pork, lamb, veal, seafood and wild game products, called themselves "the nation's largest independent specialty center-of-the-plate foodservice distributor in the industry."

Just before the Harker family re-entered the business, in February 2006, the City of Le Mars agreed to loan Harker's $500,000 for a potential expansion. The idea behind the loan was to help Harker's secure $1.5 million in economic development money from the state of Iowa.

The state loan was settled last November, according to a spokesperson from the Iowa Department of Economic Development. When Harker's leaders sold off the distribution end of their business, they paid back the funds to the state, including a 6 percent penalty for not completing the project as described in the project application.

Harker's still owes $316,674 on the Le Mars loan, according to City Finance Director Bill Cole.

"They're making monthly payments and they're up to date with their payments," Cole said.

The final payment is scheduled for March 2010.

Cole said that if Harker's closed, the monthly payment would still need to be made.

"The loan is secured by the Harker's property -- we set the land as collateral, we have a second mortgage on the land," Cole said.

Harker's began trimming back in 2007, first in April, then in November, when the company sold off their distribution business to Reinhart FoodService in LaCrosse, Wis.

The production wing of the business in Le Mars was the last piece of Harker's to remain. They processed for Reinhart FoodService, Fareway, Steak Warehouse and Farner-Bocken, an employee said.

Other companies like BPI in Sioux City, Advance Brands in Orange City and Golden Crisp in Sioux Center are now recruiting the remaining Harker's employees, one said.

"Lots of people want the employees here," she said. "This is a good group of people, all the way from the top to the bottom."

As of the end of this week, the business will be a piece of Le Mars history.

"We were fortunate to have a company like Harker's in Le Mars for a long time," former Senior Vice President Dickman said. "It's ironic that this is the 100th anniversary of its opening, but Le Mars benefited from the foresight of Jack and others. He put Le Mars on the map for foodservice."

Wendy Geiger, wife of the late Ron Geiger, who served as Harker's CEO from 1990 to 2006, said the quality of employees made the business strong.

"Harker's was in the community a long time, and they were very dedicated, very confident. The workers were great, and those people will now go forth in the community and do good work," Geiger said. "People will hire Harker's employees. Le Mars will keep the cream of the crop."

The employees were important to Ron and her, she said.

"I'm grateful for their dedication and the work they did while Ron was there," she said. "They did what they did, but now Harker's is gone. It was quite a ride."