Posted on 05/01/2007 1:17:35 PM PDT by bedolido
OAKDALE, Calif. -- The Hershey's chocolate plant in Oakdale will be shut down, officials said Monday.
The closure, which will take place in phases and will mean the loss of up to 600 jobs, is set to be complete by February 2008.
The plant is a key part of life for many in this Stanislaus County town of 17,500. The community hosts a chocolate festival on the third weekend in May each year.
The first products to cease production at the Oakdale plant will be Hershey's kisses with almonds and Hershey's syrup. Both product lines will be transferred to the Hershey's plant in Pennsylvania.
The Hershey's miniatures now made in Oakdale will be made at a plant Hershey's plans to build in Mexico.
But, but, but - what about New Orleans?
Great idea...
I can think of all kinds of brown substances that could hide among chocolate.
Better catch that last chocolate festival, then. That might be worth the road trip! Mmmmmmmmmm, chocolate.
I buy nothing from companies that move production to foreign soil to sell back into the US. No more Hersheys.
Do you happen to own any stock in companies that do it? Just curious if your outrage is selective and limited to just your shopping choices.
I own little stock, and I choose carefully.
Reminds me of a story I read where a lady planned to restrict her family Christmas shopping to U.S. made goods. She came back pretty much empty-handed and the crap she did buy, nobody wanted.
That’s funny, I do the same thing all the time. Even the gifts people like.
But the US sugar industry is still going strong. Their protective tariffs are chasing all candy making to Canada or Mexico.
I got the “Hershey squirts” in Mexico once.
Funny. Gourmet chocolatiers have sprung up like mushrooms in the past 15 years. Watch unwrapped on the food channel. Amazing the number of candy manufacturers in the USA.
Especially NOT food...
I’m all for eating like Romans when in Rome. But I prefer to buy locally when home. I almost always give preference to foods made locally in my state, local beers (the best anyway), local wines, etc. I have not purchased a french wine in about 6 years.
IIRC, you drive a GM. How do you reconcile that?
Then watch out for the Kool Aid as it is made in Mexico. I buy Wylers instead. It's cheaper than Kool Aid and American made. I do not buy food from Mexico or China.
Don’t drive a GM, though there are some models I wouldn’t mind having. Look, if Hershey’s wants needs to close a plant to be profitable, fine. If Hershey’s wants to open plants in Mexico to serve the Mexican market, fine. But if companies want to move shop to foreign soil and then sell their crap back in the US, while living off their hsitory as a US product, I ain’t buying.
An example. There was an old ceramic/plate wear manufacturer from the east coast called Phalzgraff (or something similar). Been around for 120 years or so. My wife has part of a collection. So I decided to add to her collection this past Christmas. But lo and behold, upon research, I find that in 2005 it was sold to investment Conglomerate that owns a bunch of other housewares products. Within a year, the new owners closed the plant and moved all manufacturing to China. Yet they still market it as quintessential Americana. The new owners have/had no interest in US manufacturing. The place was profitable when they purchased it, but they wanted the name for their portfolio, that’s it. I found this out right after I placed may order. I called them back and cancelled. They did not want to give my money back, I had to beat them over the head. There was nothing on their website about it being made by a bunch of chinese communists now, just a glowing narrative of the companies history.
I pay attention to this stuff like few others do. While we still have some fantastic, robust manufacturing in this country, we cannot afford to become a “service economy” and be undermined by our enemies like China. There is only so much room for metrosexuals here to sell insurance and law services to each other. There has to be a backbone.
Question (sincerely): should one stop buying all Hershey products or just the miniatures which are being moved to Mexico? Strange that they’re only moving some of the products they make to Mexico (and India/China... see this thread about Hershey’s closing a PA plant: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1822647/posts)
And about the CA plant closing: What a shame. I still have some family members in Oakdale, CA and suspect that when this plant closes, this town has only a matter of time left before it completely dries out. When I was a kid and visited there with that family, nearly everyone worked at Hershey’s. There’s only so much that a “Gateway to Yosemite” can offer when the only remaining jobs in town are at Kmart, Big-O tires, Shakey’s Pizza and the local grocery store.
Excellent! And inspirational!
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