One plant closes, another gets busier
By NORMAN DE BONO, The London Free Press
Last Updated: March 30, 2010 10:57am
Labatt Breweries will be making more beer in London, and will shut down its Hamilton plant and ship production here.
The brewer has "excess capacity" in its London plant since it sold its Labatt USA division, for which the London plant had been brewing beer.
“It is unfortunate that closing the Hamilton brewery is the only rational business decision available to us, however, we have determined that we will do everything we can for the employees," Charlie Angelakos, Labatt’s vice president, corporate affairs, said this morning in a release.
Hamilton is losing 143 workers — 99 hourly, 22 salaried — and another 22 who are now laid off.
The Hamilton brewery is closing April 30,
“This was a difficult decision,” said Angelakos, “but the impact of a number of compelling factors really leaves us no alternative. Canada’s beer market is intensely competitive and we need to continually seek the lowest possible overall, and brewery-specific, production costs.”
The release said London is a "state of the art" facility while Hamilton had a higher production cost, meaning it was cheaper for Labatt to ship production to London, than upgrade Hamilton.