Campbell Soup Shutting Down Sacramento Plant; 700 Jobs Being Cut

The Campbell Soup plant in Sacramento is closing as of July 2013 as the company says it is taking steps to “improve supply chain productivity,” according to a company release. Employees were told of the closure during a 6 a.m. meeting Thursday at the plant.

“We employ about 700 people at the Sacramento plant and unfortunately those jobs will be eliminated,” said Campbell Soup Company spokesperson Anthony Sanzio. “This is a tough day for the company, for the employees. No one likes to do this.” The company says the Sacramento plant, built in 1947, is the oldest in its network and has the highest production costs on a per-case basis.

Many of the employees at the plant have worked there their entire lives, and several told CBS13 they had no idea what they’d do next. “This is devastating, really devastating,” worker Valerie Starr said. “A lot of us have been working here for years and we’re at that age where it’s hard to find other jobs.” Read more >>

Japan to experience long term drop in tourism and product ownership

Image via WikipediaJack Barnes
In the future, Japanese products will have to undergo extreme levels of product safety inspections. The radiation is not biased in what it infects. That is, it could be from a sub assembly part shipped out of the area, or it could be from airborne fallout contaminating a shipping container for example.

The reality is that Japan is going to experience both a long term drop in tourism, but also a long term drop in the public ownership of Japanese produced products. There will be a long term stigma to the events of March 11th, which have not been baked into the global supply chain yet. Customer choices is one that has not been touched on yet, but lets be honest. Do you want to buy a car that has a real chance of residual radiation? Even if it was only a 1-5% chance?

Over the medium term, I expect to see Japan export its business with employees, to seismically safe locations. The need for major rolling black outs this summer is going to hit home to the businesses that need a stable supply of electricity.

When you consider the true level of importance of the Kanto region on the Japanese economy, the implications sink in. The impact to the nation is going to be larger than most expected. The Kanto region was still an important bread basket for Japan. In a nutshell, 1 out of 3 Japanese lived in this area. More...