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Vegetable plant back in business after fire

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

Southwestern Ontario vegetable processor Bonduelle Ontario Inc. is slated to reopen its Tecumseh production facility Wednesday, five days after fire destroyed an adjacent warehouse and caused $40 to $50 million in damage.

Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara says “the first shipment of 20,000 pounds of peas is coming in” Wednesday. On Tuesday there were 75 to 80 Bonduelle employees including several skilled tradespeople who have been in the plant since Sunday gearing up to resume production.
 
McNamara says he toured the plant Tuesday and on the “fire side it looked like a war zone.” But on the production side in one area the wall is scorched and part of the freezer building is down while on the other side where the freezer tunnels are located there are no signs of damage. He credits a fire door and firefighters using three aerial trucks to pour water on the production building with saving the facility. “It was a defensive fire line they (the firefighters) put forward and saved the plant. Thank goodness for the firefighters.”

The cause is electrical, he says. “We were able to see one area, a small electrical room, and you could see where it’s kind of like the epicentre. It was there where it started.”

Firefighters remained on the scene for three days from the time the fire started at 2 a.m. Friday until they returned the facility to Bonduelle at midnight Sunday. Firefighters from Tecumseh,  three stations from Windsor, the Town of Lakeshore, Amherstburg and a truck from Kingsville were called in to fight the blaze.

On average about 60 firefighters were on the scene fighting the blaze at any given time, he says, adding that at the fire’s height there were 100 firefighters at the facility. There were no injuries to firefighters, workers or bystanders. There were 75 workers in the plant when the fire broke out but they were all evacuated safely, he says.

“The fire couldn’t have happened at a worst time of the year,” McNamara says, adding this was the most severe fire the town has seen since 1973 when that same plant, which was owned by Green Giant at the time, caught on fire. The Bonduelle vegetable processing plant is one of the town’s biggest employers and contributes $40 million a year to the community.

The Tecumseh plant produces nearly 30,000 tonnes of frozen goods and 20,000 tonnes of canned goods mostly for its customer Green Giant, the company says in a July 18 press release. Bonduelle is the exclusive Canadian supplier to General Mills’ Green Giant brand. The facility also has packing and shipping facilities. The plant normally processes carrots, green and wax beans, green peas and sweet corn.

McNamara says 95 per cent of the processed vegetables consumed in Canada “come out of that plant. This is the home of Green Giant.”

He adds that the plant will be in shape to process sweet corn, which is due to begin being harvested in two weeks while green beans are being processed at Bonduelle’s plants in Ingersoll and New York.

The Tecumseh plant employs 150 permanent and 700 seasonal workers. A total of 110 farmers supply the Tecumseh plant with vegetables they grow on 17,297 acres, according to the release. Bonduelle owns three plants in Ontario – Tecumseh, Ingersoll and Strathroy.

All of the Bonduelle Group’s plants are insured for property damage and production losses “which should limit the impact of this incident,” the release says.

McNamara says the company plans to rebuild the destroyed warehouse.

Bonduelle officials couldn’t be reached for comment. BF

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