With a can-do attitude, the CEO of a Canadian canning company told The Voice operations are expanding into Chatham.
Erick Vachon of Ideal Can, a steel can maker based in Saint-Apollinaire, Que., said the company hopes to have the facility up and running by late spring of next year.
The operation will go into the former Crown Metal Packaging building on Irwin Street in Chatham. Vachon said it is the perfect location and perfect building.
“Chatham is a very nice place. It’s in the middle of the ‘fillers’ of cans,” he said, referring to the companies, such as Conagra in Dresden, for which his company will provide cans. “The building is exactly for a can maker. In fact, the design of our building in Quebec is a copy of this building. It’s the same size and the shape is very close.
“You need straight lines. You need a long building. This building is designed for that.”
Each line in the plant will pump out an estimated 1,000 cans per minute.
Ideal Can also serves area clients such as Sun-Brite Foods, Nortera and Weil’s Food Processing.
Vachon said Ideal has signed a lease and will move in sometime early next year.
The plan is to employ about 100 people, who will be working three shifts.
Stuart McFadden, director of economic development for the Municipality of Chatham-Kent, said he first heard Ideal was looking to expand in this region less than a month ago. And he’s happy to see it come to fruition.
“This is a Canadian company using Canadian steel, and, ultimately, it will have Canadian products inside of it (each can),” he said.
McFadden said he’s seen the tariffs applied by U.S. President Donald Trump have diverse impact on local industries.
“It has impacted some worse than others. It depends on the product you are making and where it is going,” he said. “Products under CUSMA (the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement) are not seeing the impact others are.”
Canadian steel and aluminum businesses have felt the pinch. Hard.
Vachon, in previously published reports, said the tariffs led to the decision to bring home the portion of Ideal Can’s supply chain that operated south of the border.
“The independence from American [production] is very important at this moment,” said Vachon in an interview with CBC News. “So why (don’t we) use Canadian steel with Canadian food, and a Canadian can maker?”
Ideal Can is part of the growing movement of Canadian companies seeking to shift their supply chains back into Canada as part of the Buy Canadian movement.
