Shock and anger after Thornloe Cheese factory ends most of its operations | CBC News

Yves Gauthier says he was shocked when he learned the Thornloe Cheese factory, located in the northern Ontario town of the same name, was shutting down.

“I went through all the emotions,” he said.

“I was shocked, I was very angry to see that we were back in this situation after all the hard work that we had done to put this cheese plant back on the map with modern cheeses and a great reputation all over the country.”

Gauthier managed the cheese plant for 11 years and was part of a committee to save it when former owner Parmalat threatened to close it in 2006.

At that time, an agriculture co-operative called Gencor purchased the facility, and it went on to produce award-winning cheeses.

In 2019, Gay Lea Foods purchased the Thornloe Cheese factory.

Mike Langdon, Gay Lea’s vice-president of corporate and co-operative affairs, told CBC News the company’s hope when it bought the plant was to invest more in sales and marketing, so it could eventually make the financial case to upgrade aging equipment.

But those plans didn’t pan out.

Langdon said Gay Lea brought in some of their top cheesemakers from Manitoba to assess the facility, which was built in 1969.

“We shut it down for almost seven weeks in an effort to try to get to the bottom of what we could do to save the facility,” he said.

“The assessment came back that the cost to do so is about $10 million and it could potentially be more depending on some decisions that you might make.”

Because the plant was not a strong financial performer, Langdon said, the company made the “incredibly difficult decision” to shut down most of its operations.

He said the facility will continue to process milk from grass-fed cows, which is then transported to a facility in Alliston, Ont., where it is churned into butter. Five people will remain at the factory to do that work.

In the meantime, Langdon said, Gay Lea hopes it can find a buyer to take over the Thornloe Cheese factory.

“We are certainly willing to be as accommodating as possible to try to make a sale happen.”

He added the employees who lost their jobs were offered “very strong severance packages” and a few might have other opportunities with the company.

MPP ‘blindsided’

Timiskaming-Cochrane MPP John Vathof, a former dairy farmer, said he was “blindsided” when his constituents told him there was a note on the factory door, informing them it was shutting down.

Vanthof, who was involved in the past campaign to save the factory, said he trusted Gay Lea to be a good steward.

“We all felt comfortable transferring the facility we fought so hard to save to a company that, you know, talks about community values, talks about the importance of farming the area,” he said.

“And then to quite frankly be blindsided like this — it’s a tough pill to swallow.”

Because the dairy industry is heavily regulated, though, Vanthof said farmers from the region won’t be affected by the factory’s reduced output. Their quotas will remain unchanged and they will deliver their milk to other facilities.

But Kim Laframboise, a dairy farmer from Earlton, not far from the Thornloe Cheese factory, said his milk will have to travel further to get processed.

“And the time that we think so much about our carbon footprint, it’ll add to that carbon footprint to move that milk further south.”