Campbell Soup
is closing its plant in Toronto, throwing 380 people out of work.
The closure
will come gradually over the next 18 months as the company shifts production to
plants in the United States. Those plants will not be adding any production
because the company says soup sales are declining.
The closure
will hit farmers who grow vegetables for processing. They have seen a lot of
other plants close or reduce production, including Heinz tomato ketchup, Jema in Leamington, Smucker's in Dunnville and Strub's Pickles in
Brantford.
Suzanne van
Bommel, chair of the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers marketing board, said
the plant is a big buyer of Ontario crops, and its loss would be a "big
hit" for farmers.
Campbell Soup
buys 4,800 tonnes of carrots from growers in the Holland Marsh region north of
Toronto, van Bommel told the Globe and Mail.
