Third factory closure by an American company in three weeks

After Table Talk Pies (Gaudet Pastry Shop) and East West Manufacturing (Varitron), a third American company, Imperial Dade, has announced that it will also close its sanitary products warehouse in Joliette (Sany) just six months after purchasing it, it has been learned The newspaper.

“It was not the American company that made the decision, it was the Canadian division,” he said. Newspaper, Stéphane Lapointe, president of Imperial Dade Canada, which employs about 500 people in a dozen warehouses and stores in Quebec. “Imperial Dade Canada’s decisions are all made in Canada,” he insists.

“We have a large warehouse in Montreal, one in Quebec, one in Trois-Rivières, one in Sherbrooke and unfortunately they are not at full capacity either, so we could not support a fifth in Joliette,” explains the man who has been with the company since 2008.

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As a result, Imperial Dade will lay off the 19 clerks, supervisors and drivers at the Joliette warehouse of Sany Solutions, which it had just purchased six months ago.

Distribution giant

Imperial Dade is headquartered in New Jersey. The company is a major player in the distribution of industrial food packaging and maintenance equipment products. Since May 2022, it has made a dozen acquisitions in the country, half of which are in Quebec.

End of June, The newspaper reported that after purchasing Pâtisserie Gaudet, the American company Table Talk Pies laid off its workers and closed its Acton Vale plant. A week later, it was the turn of the former Varitron electronics manufacturing plant in Granby, also owned by American interests, to close its operations.

“We wanted to be there»

In recent days, Imperial Dade Canada’s number 1, Stéphane Lapointe, has played the transparency card with The newspaper to explain this decision rather than avoiding it as leaders often do in these circumstances.

He says that it was two days after the national holiday that he and the company management went to this part of the country to announce the news to the workers of Lanaudière.

“We met with the day and evening shift. We wanted to be there to be able to answer all their questions,” says Stéphane Lapointe.

Why then draw a line under the Joliette warehouse? Because demand has been running out of steam for eight to ten months.

“All companies, whether they are competitors, customers, ourselves, everyone has cost reduction initiatives. We all know that with the pandemic, there has been a lot of inflation,” he concludes.

– With the collaboration of David Descôteaux and Sylvain Larocque

Imperial Dade

• Headquarters: Jersey City
• Canadian Headquarters: Toronto and Montreal
• Employees: 1300 (Canada)
• Founded: 1935
• Sites: 170

(Source: Imperial Dade)