Few details available about impact on Ontario farmers of most recent food processing plant closure

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

Unilever Canada is the latest food company to announce the closure of a processing plant. But without knowing how the company sourced raw product for its Bramalea soup plant, it’s hard to calculate the impact – if any – Ontario farmers will face when the plant closes its doors in March 2016, says Mark Wales, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

“We’re missing information here,” says Wales, adding he doubts the company bought ingredients for its dry soups and other products directly from Ontario farmers but more likely obtained it “already processed by somebody else.” Also unknown is how much volume of product Unilever really used.

The Unilever manufacturing plant closure is not like H.J. Heinz Company of Canada pulling out of its plant in Leamington, which clearly used Ontario-grown tomatoes, Wales notes. Still, it’s hard to see another food manufacturing plant in the province permanently shut its doors, he says.

“At the end of the day collectively we need them all and we actually need more of them.”

John Le Boutillier, president and CEO of Unilever, says in a May 8 press release through a strategic review of the dry mix category of business in North America it became apparent the company had to make a large investment to deliver “the highest possible quality standards, customer service levels and future packaging innovations.”

More than 80 per cent of the volume produced at the Bramalea plant is shipped to the United States and because of that fact Unilever made the “strategic decision to make its investment closer to where the bulk of the product is consumed,” he says. The Bramalea plant’s production is being transferred to Unilever’s plant in Independence, Missouri.

The plant manufactures soups, sauces, side dishes and gravies for North America under the Knorr and Lipton brand names.

A total of 280 salaried and hourly employees will be affected by the closure, the Unilever release says. BF