Blue Diamond Growers’ almond processing plant in Sacramento is shutting its doors after nearly a century.

News of the closure, which broke Friday, was met by community members with surprise, worry and frustration.

It’s “shocking to lose such a landmark,” Reddit user HurriedTugBoat wrote in a Friday post. “I just hope something is done with it instead of it just sitting vacant indefinitely.”

“The (agriculture) industry in the Sacramento area proper has been taken a beating over the last couple of decades,” another Reddit user wrote. “Other cities like Stockton, Yuba City, Chico, Woodland, etc., are just cheaper to operate in.”

What does the closure mean for Sacramento-area consumers? Could it affect the price and availability of the nuts at local grocery stores?

Here’s what The Sacramento Bee discovered:

What is Blue Diamond Growers?

A 115-year-old cooperative headquartered in Sacramento, Blue Diamond Growers helped make Sacramento the world’s almond capital, The Bee previously reported.

The company works with 3,000 almond growers in the United States to produce almond-based snacks and beverages, according to the Blue Diamond Almonds website.

Blue Diamond Growers described itself as the “world’s largest almond processor” with more than 2.5 million square feet at three production plants.

That includes its 50-acre manufacturing site at 16th and C streets in Sacramento, which dates back to 1914.

When is Sacramento almond processing plant closing? Why?

Blue Diamond Growers plans to wind down operations at its midtown Sacramento plant and transfer most manufacturing to sites in Turlock and Salida over the next two years, The Sacramento Bee previously reported.

Plant worker reductions will happen in phases over the next 18 to 24 months, with around 10% of plant employees — about 600 people in total — losing their jobs, the company said.

In a statement, Blue Diamond Growers president and CEO Kai Bockmann addressed the issues that contributed to the company’s decision to close the plant.

“The challenges of running a plant from these historical buildings has become too costly and inefficient,” Bockmann said. “Streamlining our manufacturing plants is the right business move to further strengthen our market-leading position and bring increased value to our grower members.”

Will almonds get harder to find in grocery stores?

“No, there will be no local effects on the market for almonds” as a result of the Blue Diamond Growers plant closure, according to Daniel Sumner, agriculture and economics professor in the UC Davis’ Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics .

He noted that Blue Diamond Growers serves a global market that reaches far beyond Sacramento.

“The trees remain in California and other processing plants can easily cover the local demand,” Sumner wrote in an email to The Bee.

According to Blue Diamond Growers, almonds remain readily available in the Sacramento area and beyond.

“Blue Diamond Almonds are in ample supply and will continue to be as we transition our production capabilities to our other California plants,” the almond cooperative told The Bee via email. “Consumer access to our almonds remains unchanged.”

Will almond prices go up?

Changes in the price of almonds depend on a number of factors, Blue Diamond Growers said, but the closure of the company’s Sacramento plant is not one of them.

“The planned plant consolidation itself is not a related factor,” Blue Diamond Growers wrote in a Monday email. “The cooperative is well positioned to further advance its market-leading brands at home and abroad, as well as the legacy of its nearly 3,000 almond farmer families.”

Sangwon Lee, postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis’ Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics , noted the almond milk market is not expected to have any significant local effects.

Lee estimates that only 4% to 8% of U.S.-produced almonds are used for almond milk.

According to Lee, the almond base used in nondairy yogurt and cheeses is processed in facilities such as Blue Diamond Growers’ Turlock plant.

There shouldn’t be any significant changes to the market due to the shutdown of the Sacramento facility, Lee said.