Posted on 04/03/2011 7:49:07 AM PDT by massmike
Paul Hooper of Framingham found a good job at the Breyers factory on Old Connecticut Path 10 years ago, where he kept the ice cream production line supplied with fruit and nuts.
Norfolk resident Tom Abdou brought his electrician skills to the plant, while Franklin's Marie Ouellette enjoyed her spot on the production line.
All three became part of a large team of close-knit employees who churned out as many as 1 million gallons of ice cream a day.
But workers had to say their goodbyes this week when the production plant, which opened as a Sealtest factory in 1964, closed after 47 years. Nearly two years ago Breyers' parent company, Unilever, notified staff and the public of the planned shutdown. Unilever said it could make ice cream more cheaply elsewhere.
"It's kind of a bittersweet ending," Abdou said Wednesday. "It's like anything else: You know it's coming and then it hits you."
Yesterday was supposed to be the last day for the bulk of the plant's 174 workers.
They were instead sent home with their last paychecks a day early.
(Excerpt) Read more at metrowestdailynews.com ...
Hey ‘workers’, how’s that union treating you these days?
sent home a day early to avoid mischief...
“sent home a day early to avoid mischief...”
Exactly - I was thinking the same.
Which now totally explains the Framingham Heart Study's results.
I hate their ice cream.
I remember when my uncle lost his job with Sealtest, now this, Sad.
I like Republic Ice Cream. Their Strawberry/Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches are delicious.
“Surprise, surprise!”, as Gomer Pyle used to say. Yet another manufacturer driven from a northeast high-tax, high-energy-cost, non-right-to-work state to a southern low-tax, low-energy-cost, right-to-work state! I wonder why on earth they would do that?
BTW, don’t you just love how this bleeding-heart article fails to mention anything other than the cost of water as being the cause of the move?
Sealtest was great milk and ice cream!
Now I believe the best is Mayfield. As a Texan Blue Bell is good, but not as good as Mayfield.
Nearly two years ago Breyers' parent company, Unilever, notified staff and the public of the planned shutdown. Unilever said it could make ice cream more cheaply elsewhere.Where would this 'elsewhere' be for the production of ice cream? .
Yeah, the posts at the end of the article are really telling. Apparently the MRWA is used by politicians to employee their buddies, like the TX lottery was used by the TX governor Ma Richards to employee her discredited friends, hired as $500,000/year “consultants”.
First and last time.
Leni
My very first memory of ice cream is a Beyer’s dixie cup of vanilla. Funny how memory works. I still recall the little green leaf.
That plant wasn’t far from the Wonder Bread bakery which closed around 1998 and is now a Sears.
Move the factory to Kalifornia. Problem solved!
Why do they need very much water to make icecream? I thought it was made from milk.
I also noticed they own Vaseline. Guess the union will have something to help them stick it to the man!
Just some information the MSM does not give you:
It’s not that Breyers is having trouble, it’s that they’ve moved production to a more modern and efficient plant in Convington, Tennessee.
- - - - - - - - -
December 19, 1984 is the date that the legislature established the MWRA. Throughout the late 1960s and into the 70s communities along the Connecticut River worked together to build multiple waste treatment plants that cleaned up what had been more an open sewer than river. This was at a time when Federal funding would cover up to 90% of the cost of a project.
Framingham and other Metro West communities tried to get approval from the state to create multiple treatment and pretreatment plants throughout this region. However, the prospect of all that Federal money made the legislature salivate at the prospect of getting a piece of the action. For over a decade the infighting as to who would control the projects, funding and jobs was waged between shifting alliances of legislators and Governors. When the 70s ended so did the Federal funding. Then came the Federal court decision ordering Boston and other coastal cities to clean Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay.
With no Federal funding the then dominant Boston block of legislators (plus Quincy and Braintree) enacted a plan that forced the other municipalities to join in a giant mega-project so as to spread the cost.
This meant that Framingham would not build either a treatment or prrtreatment [sic] plant but would pump its waste to Boston.
The Sealtest plant used lots of water which the MWRA made very expensive. But even worse was that the water used to rinse the mixing vats was now classified as industrial waste and assessed an additional fee over and above the normal sewer rate. Even though the majority of waste water from the plant was safe to drink containing only ice cream residue; since in contained sugars that fermented and acidified in the twenty mile trip to Boston it was eating away the pipelining.
This would never have happened had Framingham and others built local treatment/pretreatment plants.
December 19, 1984 is the date that the fate of the Sealtest facility was determined as a consequence of Governor Dukakis failing to rein in the legislature in the mid-70s.
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