Kraft Heinz to increase Canadian production with $250-million investment in Montreal factory
Kraft Heinz Canada says it’s going to spend $250 million on its factory in Montreal to increase homegrown manufacturing and production of its brands.
The Canadian arm of the American multinational food company on Friday announced a $250-million investment into its factory in Montreal to increase its homegrown manufacturing and production of its brands.
“(When demand for a product peaks), we have to import from either the U.S. or sometimes even from our colleagues in Europe because we just don’t have capacity,” Simon Laroche, president of Kraft Heinz Canada, said. With these investments, we’ll be able to keep all the production here.”
For example, he said 90 per cent of the Heinz ketchup sold in Canada is made in the country — and made from Canadian tomatoes, mostly from Leamington, Ont. — but the company has to import from the United States to satisfy demand during peaks in the summer.
“We looked at our next five years and it was very clear for us that we needed to invest because we wouldn’t be able to fulfil the demand of Canadians for a product,” he said.
With the new investment, Laroche said the company will be able to make “100 or 99-point-something” per cent of the ketchup needed in Canada in the next two to five years.
“Canadians love products made in Canada,” Laroche said. “The more we can make in Canada from our Canadian factory, that’s always a more efficient way to do it, and Canadian consumers love that.”
Kraft Heinz Canada said the funds will be used for upgrading and modernizing the Mount Royal facility, which employs more than half of the company’s 2,000 employees in Canada. The facility, which houses the Canadian subsidiary’s main operations, produces brands such as Kraft Dinner, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Kraft Peanut Butter.
Laroche said the factory is the company’s most complex in the world and has 41 different lines.
“We need more capacity, more flexibility, we need to find efficiencies and we need reliability,” he said. “So, yeah, it’s a big master plan.”
Laroche said there are also logistic costs when importing products and U.S. factories have other markets to support, making it more complicated to get what Canadians need.
He also said U.S. tariffs and the growing sentiment to buy Canadian had the company come up with campaigns and commercials to show its products were produced here.
“A lot of Canadians thought that our products were being imported and people didn’t know that 75 per cent of what we sell in Canada is made in Canada,” he said.
• Email: dpaglinawan@postmedia.com