LEAMINGTON, Ont. — Jobs and tomato acres in southwestern Ontario have been salvaged with the announcement that a company has bought the H.J. Heinz Co. plant near Leamington.
Heinz had announced its intention to close the plant last fall.
Pradeep Sood, who represents the principals of the Highbury Canco Corp., couldn’t be reached last week, but Robert Crawford, president of Local 459 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, said he spoke earlier with the Toronto businessperson.
“I think it’s going to be a pretty lean canning operation,” Crawford said.
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“It will be a year-round operation. They’ll do distribution and they’ll be co-packing for Heinz.”
Heinz has employed 800 people, including full-time and seasonal workers and management personnel. Crawford understands the number will be reduced to 200 to 250 full-time union positions and 80 seasonal workers.
Some members of the Heinz management team will also stay on, he said.
Crawford said he expects there will be pressure to reduce union wages. The average full-time employee earns about $25 per hour, he added.
Tomato juice made from Ontario-grown tomatoes is to be a big part of the business. The production of ketchup will move elsewhere, but several other lines are to be produced at the plant, Crawford said.
Jim Poel, chair of Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers, understands the new company will process 80,000 tons of tomatoes for juice production this fall, which is 40 percent of the tomato run under Heinz.
Highbury Canco is not the only Ontario canning company looking to expand international sales.
Thomas Canning, which operates a small tomato processing plant near Windsor, recently received $3 million in provincial funding to support a global expansion plan for its products.
