The parent company of Oscar Mayer, Kraft Heinz, announced on Thursday that it will be shutting down the Oscar Mayer headquarters in Madison, Wis., and moving it to Chicago. The company also announced that it will continue its consolidation strategy and close down an additional seven plants located all over North America over the next couple of years.

The Oscar Mayer meat processing plant had been a staple of the Madison community since it was built back in 1919. The company announced that 2,600 overall jobs will be lost including 700 at the Oscar Mayer plant, according to The Chicago Tribune.  Kraft Heinz looks to move about 250 jobs to Chicago but everyone else will be laid off. By closing the plant, as well as seven others, Kraft Heinz looks to save over $1.5 billion in operating costs.

The company is considering shifting the cheese production facility in Champagne, Ill. to other factories in North America. The manufacturing plant there makes the company’s Miracle Whip as well as other salad dressings and sauces. The elimination of the Champagne facility will cost another 1,400 jobs. A company spokesman said that the company was trying to cut back and eliminate its current situation of excess production capacity. It has become too bloated, they said, and needs to be tightened up.

The company, when it was Kraft Foods, established its headquarters in Madison in 1955. By 1962, the Oscar Mayer manufacturing plant was producing more than 36,000 hot dogs every hour. While Kraft Heinz is shifting its headquarters to Chicago, it still maintains a huge presence in Pittsburgh where Heinz has been located for many decades.

There have been huge gatherings at the plant to silently protest and to wish everyone well. Current Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, once worked for Oscar Mayer at the plant and was even a driver of the company’s famous 27-foot-long Wienermobile. For many in Madison, it is feeling very much like a death in the family.