Maple Leaf Foods cutting more than 1,500 jobs, closing plants
Posted October 19, 2011 4:18 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Maple Leaf Foods has announced it’s cutting 1,550 jobs and closing several plants as part of a three-year $560-million restructuring plan.
The will close processing plants in Kitchener, Hamilton and Toronto; in North Battleford, Sask.; Moncton and a small facility in Winnipeg by the end of 2014.
Kitchener will see 1,200 jobs cut.
“Changes we announced today will streamline our business, accelerate our ability to innovate and provide us with a solid platform for future growth,” the company’s President and CEO Michael McCain said.
The plan will also see the investment of more than half a billion dollars and creation of a massive prepared meats facility in Hamilton.
The company said the plan will create 1,150 new jobs but the associated plant closures will more than offset that.
Maple Leaf says it will build a new prepared meats facility in Hamilton, Ont., and will also invest in plants in Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Brampton, Ont.
The company will also close four of its distribution centres — in Moncton, N.B., Burlington, Ont., Kitchener, Ont., and Coquitlam, B.C. — consolidating distribution for Eastern Canada in a new facility in Ontario and using an existing facility in Saskatoon as its Western Canadian hub.
