The North Battleford economy was dealt a setback Thursday with the announcement of the closure of the Maple Leaf Foods plant in North Battleford.
A total of 300 hourly and 30 salaried jobs are affected by the closure, which will happen over the next 18 months as part of a nationwide restructuring of the company.
The news was delivered to the company's employees Wednesday morning, with news going out to the media shortly afterwards.
According to Paul Hartwick, vice-president of manufacturing at Maple Leaf Foods based out of Mississauga, Ont., the North Battleford plant is one of six across Canada that will be closing by the end of 2014. The others closing are in Kitchener, Hamilton, and Toronto, Ont., Moncton, NB., and a small facility in Winnipeg, Man.
In North Battleford's case the plant is slated to close in the first half of 2013.
The plan is to consolidate production into four "centres of excellence," said Hartwick, "so as a result of that the very difficult decision was made today to close the facility in North Battleford."
The four centres will include a new $395 million prepared meats facility in Hamilton, as well as existing plants in Saskatoon, Brampton and another plant in Winnipeg.
The North Battleford prepared-meat plant produced only bacon, and was one of three facilities that produced bacon. All bacon production will now be consolidated out of the Winnipeg plant.
The Winnipeg plant and the existing plants in Saskatoon and Brampton will also see stepped-up investment from the company. Saskatoon will see a $45 million investment and will be expanding by 27,000 square feet.
Still, it was bad news for North Battleford.
"We do deeply regret the impact it will have on the people in the community," said Hartwick.
The news came shortly after what was a "good news" announcement for the Battlefords Tuesday: the move of manufacturer Grit Industries Inc. to Parsons Industrial Park area creating 70 new jobs. City Manager Jim Toye said he and Mayor Ian Hamilton got word from Maple Leaf Foods late Tuesday afternoon.
"Not good at all," was Toye's reaction to the news.
"Obviously we're certainly concerned about the 330 people who are losing their jobs."
Now the city is tasked with finding a new tenant or buyer for the Maple Leaf facility on Canola Avenue. Toye said the city will work with Maple Leaf Foods to achieve that.
"We are going to work with them and with provincial and federal governments to ensure we find someone to fit into that manufacturing building prior to that date when Maple Leaf is to leave us in 2013."
Maple Leaf pledged its commitment to work to find some other use for the plant.
"We're willing to work with the local government and the private sector to identify the potential alternatives for this facility. We've a good track record in finding alternative uses for some of our plants," said Hartwick.
As for the workers, Hartwick said his company will be sitting down with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union to finalize a closure agreement and details of severance packages will be reviewed by employees on an individual basis.
"We've got a skilled work force here, they're very proud of the product they produce," Hartwick said. "We expect they'll continue to produce with pride over the next year and a half."
Overall, the company will see 1,150 new jobs created in the restructuring, which will see the company spending $560 million over three years to establish a world class meats network. That is offset, however, by the elimination of 2,700 jobs that will result in a net loss of 1,550 positions. Most of the losses will take place in 2014.
Hartwick said the reason behind the closure was the "need to be competitive on a North America-wide basis." Based on the age and the size of the layout in the North Battleford plant, he said, "it made it impossible to establish the scale and efficiencies required to be globally competitive."
Speaking at an NDP policy announcement in North Battleford Wednesday afternoon, Battlefords MLA Len Taylor expressed his regret over the decision.
"Maple Leaf has been a strong community citizen in the province of Saskatchewan and certainly here in the Battlefords," said Taylor, who also noted the importance of "value-added agriculture."
"The province of Saskatchewan should be working very hard to protect the jobs we currently have," said Taylor, who pledged to work with the City and the economic development office in the coming months.
