It always seems that large companies wait until just before Christmas to announce plant closures and layoffs. Perhaps it’s more to coincide with the calendar year than any desire to make a really exciting Christmas for employees, but it always seems a cruel move to have employees trudge out, lunchbox in hand, for the last time amid snowflakes, Christmas lights, and waiting children.
The closure of the Dartmouth Moirs plant is just one more on a list that has become longer and longer over the last few decades. The “Pot of Gold” might be at the end of the rainbow, but it seems having the rainbow end in Mexico works better with the bottom line than having it end in Dartmouth. The closure of an almost 200 year old company follows a typical trend: started as a family business by a Moir ancestor in 1815; Pot of Gold, their best known product, is developed in 1928; it’s managed by several generations of Moirs; the company suffers in the 60’s and is taken over by a group of Nova Scotia businessmen who get an influx of funds and try to make a go of it; it’s bought out by Nabisco (American) in 1967; a new factory is built in Dartmouth in 1975; it’s bought out by Hershey Chocolate in 1987, and finally it’s closed with little warning in late 2007 in favor of moving the factory to Mexico. Continue reading