Maple Leaf Foods Inc. has closed a wiener-producing plant in
Hamilton that has been in operation since 1994, and has transferred operations
to its new plant, also in Hamilton.
It’s the first of a number of closures that will take place
this year, including the main Schneider’s plant on Courtland Avenue in
Kitchener.
When the closures are complete, the Hamilton plant will be
the largest and most modern meat-processing plant in Canada.
There were 213 workers at the wiener plant in Hamilton.
About 20 of them will lose their jobs.
The Kitchener plant employed more than 2,000 last year. At
one time it also slaughtered cattle, hogs and chickens, but all of the
slaughter operations were shut down long ago.
Bacon, which also was a major item produced at the Kitchener
plant, hasn’t been produced there for decades; bacon processing has become a
specialized business dominated now by Prince Foods, a division of Olymel of
Quebec.
Maple Leaf's news release about the wiener-plant closure was issued late Thursday when most reporters were gone for the long weekend.
