A southern Ontario sugar wafer cookie bakery is scheduled to close permanently in mid-May as its U.S. owner consolidates production elsewhere.
Snyder's-Lance, a North Carolina snack food company, announced Monday it will close the former Windsor Wafers plant at Cambridge, Ont. effective May 17.
The company, formed in 2010 by a merger of snack food makers Lance and Snyder's of Hanover, said the closure follows a "comprehensive review of current manufacturing facilitates including capacity, capabilities and distribution costs to key markets."
The Cambridge plant, the company said, will close "in order to reduce operating costs while consolidating production into other existing manufacturing sites."
The Windsor Wafers plant has bounced through several owners in the past two decades, including Beatrice Foods Canada, bought by the Canadian arm of Italian dairy firm Parmalat in 1997. Parmalat then sold the plant to A+M Cookie Co., which in turn sold it to Lance in 2005.
Lance operated the plant as part of sugar wafer maker Tamming Foods, an Ontario company it bought in 1999.
Workers at the Cambridge plant can expect severance, outplacement benefits and consideration for "jobs that may exist in other Snyder's-Lance facilities," the company said Monday.
