I purchased my final bag of Cape Cod Potato Chips yesterday.
I wasn’t going to do it, however the party-size chips had been on sale for $3.99 a bag at Market Basket, a greenback lower than traditional. I at all times like to purchase native.
So, I scooped up a bag, considering that now that the once-admired and iconic Cape Cod firm was leaving Massachusetts, I used to be leaving it.
The as soon as regionally based and owned Hyannis potato chip firm shall be shut down by its present proprietor, Campbell Soup Co., and its operations shall be moved out of Massachusetts.
The corporate mentioned that 49 folks will lose their jobs and that the Cape Cod firm produced solely 4% of the chips anyway.
However, whether or not the Hyannis plant produced 4% or 40% of the chips would be the final time I purchase them, although I preferred them and admired the lighthouse on the packaging.
The bundle appears so like Cape Cod, so like Massachusetts, so like New England.
It’s simply too dangerous that there is no such thing as a option to power Campbell Soup to take the chips and depart the lighthouse behind.
In spite of everything, how are Massachusetts shoppers going to react once they discover that their Cape Cod Potato Chips with the lighthouse emblem are now not made in Massachusetts however are being shipped in from Campbell Soup crops in Beloit, Wisconsin, Hanover, Pennsylvania, and Charlotte, North Carolina?
None of these locations have a lighthouse. Not good.
Now, the lack of 49 jobs could not imply a lot within the massive image, however they imply so much if one of many jobs is yours.
What’s fascinating about all of it is that the founders of Cape Cod Potato Chips lived the American Dream, first beginning the corporate after which ultimately promoting it to a significant firm. That too is a part of the American dream.
The corporate was based by brothers Steve and Jude Bernard in 1980 in a Hyannis storefront the place they offered their kettle-cooked chips.
After struggling for years, the family-owned enterprise lastly took off with gross sales in supermarkets in Massachusetts and on the East Coast.
Media shops did favorable tales in regards to the firm’s success. Its gross sales reached $30 million when the household offered the corporate, which ultimately ended up within the palms of Campbell Soup.
In leaving Massachusetts, Cape Cod Potato is becoming a member of different firms leaving Massachusetts for greener pastures in states with decrease taxes.
Simply final week, Panera Bread, Zipcar, and Thermo Fisher Scientific every introduced main closures or relocations out of state as a consequence of excessive taxes, excessive power prices, and local weather change rules.
Panera Bread is closing its Franklin bakery and eliminating 92 jobs. Zipcar is shutting down its Boston headquarters, slicing 125 jobs, and Thermo Fisher Scientific is closing its Franklin facility and shedding 103 folks.
That is taking place whereas Gov. Maura Healey talks a couple of robust Massachusetts economic system, whereas, underneath her very nostril, companies and persons are leaving the state.
Cape Cod Potato Chips is a particular case. Its plant grew to become a vacationer attraction, part of the Cape’s attract. It at the least deserved some remark — if not assist — from the Healey administration
A hands-on governor would have at the least visited the plant and made a pretty proposal to Campbell Soup to rethink shutting the Hyannis plant down.
She might even have proven the identical concern for the employees dropping their jobs as she does for the prison unlawful immigrants she is defending. That’s what a governor is meant to do.
As a substitute, listening to her administration is like listening to the outdated Bee Gees singing about “when the lights all went out in Massachusetts.”
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas might be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
