Morton Frozen Foods, 1953-2000

In 1953, Morton Frozen Foods (later acquired by ConAgra) took over the Crozet Cold Storage facility and converted it into a frozen-food production plant.

At its peak, Morton/ConAgra was Crozet's flagship employer with more than six hundred employees. The plant produced frozen pies, dinners, and other prepared foods on a national scale. It defined the town's economic identity for nearly five decades.

The facility closed in 2000, eliminating those six hundred jobs in a single round. The closure could have produced a long industrial decline; it did not, because Crozet was already in the early stages of becoming a Charlottesville exurb. The Master Plan that followed in 2004 codified that transition.