collective bargaining. That same month, the company announced it would close its facility. In September 2009, Brynwood announced the sale of Stella D'oro to Lance, a large manufacturer of snack foods, which intended to relocate Stella D'Oro's production to a non-union facility in Ashland, Ohio. Brynwood earned negative attention for its role in the work stoppage and sale of Stella D'oro, including a reference in an op-ed piece by the AFL–CIO's Richard Trumka, published in The Wall Street Journal in April 2010. On September 8, 2009, Lance announced it was purchasing the Stella D'oro brand as well as certain manufacturing equipment and inventory. It thereafter began manufacturing Stella D'oro products in Lance's Ashland, Ohio, bakery. The Bronx manufacturing location, which was not included in the sale, closed after the sale, and was demolished in spring 2012. In early September 2010, a 2 to 1 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board affirmed the June 2009 decision of an administrative law judge that Stella D'oro violated federal labor law by refusing to furnish detailed financial statements to the workers' union to support claims of needing contract concessions to survive. The board ordered the company to furnish back pay with interest, as well as benefits for the two-month period after employees offered to return to work in May 2009, and before the company took them back in July. On March 28, 2013, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the NLRB's decision, finding that Stella D'oro had not violated any federal labor law. Operations Stella D'oro's bakery was located on West 237th Street at the north end of Kingsbridge in the Bronx, New York City, but this was closed in October 2009 after disputes with labor unions and not included in the sale to Lance. By late December 2006, the company had moved part of its manufacturing and cookie production to New Jersey. The company's Swiss fudge cookies being made without milk or butter, Stella D'oro has a devoted following among Orthodox Jews who follow Jewish dietary guidelines. The cookies are nicknamed shtreimels, the Yiddish term for round fur hats worn on the Sabbath by some Hasidic Jews, and are pareve, a category of kosher food that contains neither meat nor dairy ingredients. After buying the company, Kraft removed the pareve designation from Stella D'oro's baked products, but returned it after declining sales and complaints. References External links Official website (archived, 26