Last can off the line at Campbell's
LAST week saw the end of an era as production finished at Lynn's iconic Campbell's factory after an almost 50-year association with the town.
Owner Premier Foods is now in the process of stripping out equipment from the Hardwick Road site, where the first cans of the famous condensed soup produced in the UK rolled off the production line in 1959.
The closure also sees the disappearance of the soup cans, made famous by artist Andy Warhol in the 1960s, from shop shelves to reappear under the new name Batchelors Condensed Soup, as Premier's licence on the Campbell's name ends.
Spokesman Steve Marinker told the Lynn News: "Production stopped last week and this week they are stripping out the machinery and making the site ready for whoever comes in to take it over."
The Lynn factory was the first major Campbell's plant to be constructed outside America. Within 20 years of its opening the workforce had grown to 500 and the business was producing more than 60 varieties of soup and other foodstuffs, and exporting to 50-plus countries.
Cans carried labels in one of 13 languages and swingometers inside the factory kept the workforce informed of the public's reaction to the products.
In the early 1990s, a Fray Bentos pies production line was moved into the Lynn factory with its famous red cooling tower.
But after Premier Foods bought the company in a 460 million deal last year, it announced in January that it would be closing the site at the end of this year with the loss of 245 jobs.
North West Norfolk MP Henry Bellingham described the announcement as "a kick in the teeth" for the workforce, as Campbell's had been a key part of Lynn's industrial scene for a long time.
Premier said that most of the Lynn workers would be redeployed to new jobs, including to new posts at its Wisbech and Long Sutton factories, although that still left about 100 in doubt.
In August, a company spokesman confirmed that more than 100 staff were planning to transfer to other Premier locations when the Lynn factory closed and a buyer was being sought for the site.
Former Campbell's worker George Chappell, of Hillington Square, Lynn, said he accepted a voluntary redundancy package in April, 2005, "because I could see this was going to happen".
He blamed the closure on the effects of the buy-one-get-one-free approach favoured by leading supermarkets. "It's the producer who pays for these offers, not the stores," he explained.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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