Maple Leaf Foods Inc. has decided to close the J.M. Schneider Inc. meat-packing plant in Kitchener as part of a massive restructuring of its meat-processing business.It is building a new $395-million plant in Hamilton which is also where it recently opened a new bakery to consolidate operations from three other Ontario bakeries it is closing.
It will also be investing in plants at Winnipeg, Brampton and Saskatoon, which is the former Mitchell Gourmet Foods business that was bought by Schneider before it was taken over by Maple Leaf.Also closing will be the distribution centre in Kitchener.
The packing plants and distribution centres in Coquitlam, B.C., and Moncton, New Brunswick, are also closing, all by the end of 2014.
A small plant in Winnipeg and another in North Battleford, Sask. and one in Brampton, Ont., will be closed.
President Michael McCain says the changes will improve efficiencies and profits.
About 1,550 people are employed at the places that are closing, 1,200 of them in Kitchener; about 1,150 will be hired at Hamilton and for consolidated distribution centres in Winnipeg and two for Ontario, one of them in Eastern Ontario.
The total investment will be $560 million.
Kitchener and other cities have been nervous ever since McCain announced plans more than two years ago for a massive modernization of the company’s meat-processing facilities to become more competitive on a North American scale.
Some competitors, such as Tyson, Cargill, Smithfield and JBS, are far larger than Maple Leaf and have recently been taking an increasing share of sales through Canada’s largest supermarket chains which relentlessly push suppliers for lower prices.
