A Gainesville food processing plant will close its doors today, leaving 78 people out of work.

However, a spokesman says about half of the company’s 139 workers at Kings Delight on Aviation Boulevard will be hired to work at four other company plants in Gainesville.

The company informed the Georgia Department of Labor in January that it would close its plant at 1150 Aviation Blvd. at the end of business today. But 61 workers will fill jobs at the company’s other Gainesville locations.

A company spokesman, John Bogert, said Kings Delight lost its lease on the plant. He also said that the owner, who was not identified, has expressed an interest in hiring many of the workers who will not be retained.

“Somebody else wants to use the facility for their own use, so they’ve asked us to vacate,” Bogert said.

The company is a subsidiary of Booth Creek Management, a Colorado company that has extensive holdings in the food industry.

Sam Hall, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Labor, said the agency would be assisting any laid-off workers through the agency’s career center on Atlanta Highway.

The closing is the first major layoff of 2009 in Hall County.