Harvest Sherwood Food Distributors filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice to notify employees and state officials of impending job cuts.

The distributor is planning to lay off approximately 1,500 employees and shut down operations, with layoffs beginning by April 21. According to local reports, the closure will affect 255 workers in Michigan; 130 in South Florida; and 96 in Portland, OR; among others.

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The company has not publicly disclosed the reasons for its closure.

Harvest Sherwood brands itself as the nation’s largest independent wholesale food distributor in the U.S. with about $4 billion of annual revenue. Based in Detroit, MI, the distributor provides a wide range of commodities and branded products, including bakery items, deli foods, beef, pork, lamb and more.

“Well, actually, it became a surprise to all of us. We saw it down the road, but we didn’t expect this to come fast,” the co-owner of Detroit-based Liberty Food Center, a customer of Harvest Sherwood, said in a local report. “Well, the layoffs started about 2-3 months ago. We heard something about 45 to 50 people is gone. And we thought maybe they were trying to clean up the house, but maybe it probably was the start.”

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Local reports said the layoffs add to a series of workforce reductions in the industry reflecting broader difficulties for food distributors in this sector. As part of the shutdown process, affected employees are expected to receive severance packages and job placement assistance.