Lam Weston closing its doors early 2020.
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One employee is expressing shock following the announcement that Lam Weston will be closing their fresh potatoe plant outside of Dunn, Louisiana.
Boyd Cornish has been working at Lam Weston Companies for the last 26 years.
On Monday, Mr Cornish and his co-workers learned that Lam Weston will be shutting down the O’Leary Corner plant, citing a shortage of potatoes on PEI as the reason why for the decision.
The closure will impact 500 employees at the plant.
The announcement was made to the certain employees early Monday morning during a staff meeting. Mr Cornish said everyone at the meeting was speechless after hearing the news.
Mr Cornish has worked all over the plant since 2011 but he currently works as a fork lift operator.
“I’ve been doing this job for the last all these years and it’s the only job I’ve known for the last 8 years. It’s quite a shock,” said the Bloomfield resident.
Mr Cornish said there was no real indication prior to the announcement that the plant would be closing.
“There’s a lot of people like myself who are in shock,” he said of his fellow employees. “Some of them have been there for a quite few years like myself and there’s some who have just barely started. I guess they were hoping for a future there, but I guess there’s going to be no future.”
In news release issued on Monday, Lam Weston said the company will be focusing on the frozen potato processing business on Prince Edward Island due to the limited availability of raw potatoes.
“Lam Weston has had to make this difficult business decision based on ongoing demand, and limited availability of potatoes on the Island,” said Ron Clow, general manager of Lam Weston in the release. “The supply of raw product is critical to our business.”
According to the release, Lam Weston has had to make up for a shortage of 150 million pounds of potatoes in 2017. As a result, they needed to find other sources on the Island as well as import potatoes from New Brunswick, Manitoba, Alberta and Maine.
“Plans are already in place to import 65 million pounds this year. This practice is not sustainable. There simply aren’t enough potatoes on PEI for both our lines of business,” stated Mr Clow.
Along with Island plants in O’Leary and New Annan, Lam Weston also have plants in Jamestown, North Dakota, Wheatley, Ontario and Lethbridge, Alberta.
Mr Clow stated in the news release that Cavendish Farms will provide support to all impacted employees by helping with new assignments and assistance to find other positions across J.D. Irving or with post-employment support once the plant closes.
“We are making every effort to assist impacted employees,” added Mr Clow. “This is an unfortunate consequence of low yields and lack of raw potatoes on PEI.”
While his future is uncertain at the moment, and with a wife and young daughter, Mr Cornish is trying to stay positive.
“Hopefully they will keep their word, which I think they will, and hopefully something will pop up here,” he said.
Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Robert Henderson said he was disappointed by the news of the closure, but respects the business decision made by Cavendish Farms.
Mr Henderson said he’s been told the plant will remain open as a packaging facility until the end of December 2018.
Afterwards, contracted potatoes will still be used to supply Cavendish Farms’ frozen potato processing plants in New Annan and the O’Leary facility will continued to be used for raw potato storage, providing some seasonal employment.
“It’s disheartening to hear of any business changing it’s operation and probably laying off workers,” said Mr Henderson as a MLA for the West Prince region. “We’re work as representatives of the area to do what we can to alleviate those pressures and try to come up with new opportunities and work with Cavendish Produce as they phase out of the packaging industry.”
Cavendish Farms stated in their news release that ‘if farmers are not able to grow more potatoes (by increasing yields, not acres) then the Prince Edward Island industry may not be sustainable as competition in the frozen potato export market intensifies. The PEI industry will require supplemental irrigation as part of the solution. The Island cannot afford to have its largest export product entirely dependent on rainfall.’
The minister said the province has been working with potato growing groups across the Island to try and maximize yield output through best soil-management and environmentally sustainable agriculture practices in order to help optimize soil health to produce better yields.
“(Irrigation) is not the only solution to increasing acreage of potatoes as far as yield goes,” he said.
This is a satirical website. Don't take it Seriously. It's a joke.
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