I am an absolute sucker for local products that make it big, especially food products. Some of my favorites - but of course! - are from Worcester: Near East Rice Pilaf. Polar Soda. Table Talk Pies.
I always have a couple of boxes of Near East rice/pilaf/couscous in my kichen cabinets. In my fridge, there'll always be some Polar Soda. (I especially like the diet orange and the diet cranberry. Mixed together, it's a wonderful combo.) I don't have any Table Talk Pies around, but when I go to a Woo Sox (Red Sox AAA team in Worcester) game - which I do a couple of times a season - I always get me a pie-let, even though they rarely if ever have my favorite, which is cherry.
A local food favorite that broke out of local availability into nationwide presence doesn't have to be from Worcester. I like Brigham's ice cream. And since I first had one, decades ago, Cape Code Potato Chips, has been my chip o' choice.
As I write this post, there are no bags of Cape Codders in my kitchen, but there is an empty bag in my kitchen wastebasket.
So I was sad to read the news that those chips, as of April, will not longer be made in Massachusetts. The OG plant in Hyannis is closing down, and 49 employees will be losing their jobs.
In a statement, the company said the Hyannis plant produces just 4 percent of the Cape Cod and Kettle brand chips, while newer plants in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania produce the majority. The move will end production of Cape Cod chips in Massachusetts. (Source: Boston Globe)The company, by the way, is not Cape Cod Potato Chips. It's Campbell's, as in soups in red and white cans. They acquired Cape Cod back in 2018. I can't say I remember this acquisition, but I'm sure I was aware of it at the time. As I'm sure I would have feared that, post acquisition, chip quality would go down, and those yummy Cape Codders would no longer be so Mm! Mm! Good!
The Hyannis site “no longer makes economic sense for the business,” the company said. “Production will be transferred to more modern and efficient plants, enabling a more agile and flexible manufacturing network” while maintaining quality.
Blah, blah, blah-di-blah blah. And, for the employees who are about to be pink-slipped, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on.
Campbell’s said it will provide “impacted employees with separation benefits, job placement support and guidance on how to access state assistance programs.”
The company said it plans to connect with Cape Cod organizations that “offer culinary entrepreneur programs, workforce development, and career pathways” in the hospitality industry. It will also allow nonprofits to apply for grants from the Campbell Foundation, which targets communities where the company has operations.
Good luck to the laid-off employees. I can't quite figure out how working on a manufacturing line can translate into culinary entrepreneurship, but, then again, I am singularly lacking in careerish imagination. Good luck to them all!
And I do have to say that there was something a bit romantic about Cape Cod Potato Chips actually being made on Cape Cod as opposed to, say, Wisconsin. The sea salt from Wisconsin won't exactly be local. And while I know that Wisconsin has a titanic lake next door. And dunes. It's not the same. No one ever wrote a song about Wisconsin that holds a candle to Old Cape Cod.
If you spend an evening, then you'll want to stay.
Watching the moonlight on Cape Cod Bay.
You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod.
Sentimental me. (Oh, boo-hoo.)
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