KETCHUP PATRIOTISM
LEAMINGTON ONTARIO TOWN WHERE THE TOMATO WAS KING RALLIES TO SAVE ITS FORMER HEINZ KETCHUP PLANT
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
First uploaded Dec. 31, 2015. Last updated Mar. 19, 2016.
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
First uploaded Dec. 31, 2015. Last updated Mar. 19, 2016.
Published as "We can learn a lesson from tomatoes" in the Calgary Herald, Mar. 19, 2016.
There has been a great deal of media coverage recently about “ketchup patriotism”.
In 2014, Heinz moved ketchup production to the United States and shut down its Leamington, ON plant putting almost 750 employees and many local tomato growers out of work.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/international/town-where-the-tomato-is-king-rallies-to-save-its-heinz-plant.html?emc=edit_th_20151230&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=67505919&_r=0
In 2014, Heinz moved ketchup production to the United States and shut down its Leamington, ON plant putting almost 750 employees and many local tomato growers out of work.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/international/town-where-the-tomato-is-king-rallies-to-save-its-heinz-plant.html?emc=edit_th_20151230&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=67505919&_r=0
and see: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ketchup-wars-is-frenchs-nationalism-mere-rhetoric/article29301604/
So while Heinz ketchup (for dipping french fries, for stirring into a bowl of cheese-and-mac lunch, or for slathering on top of a slice of just-out-of-the-oven meatloaf) is no longer made in Canada, our country’s rule that tomato juice must be made from fresh tomatoes, not paste, saved jobs at the Leamington plant, the farmers who supply it with fresh tomatoes, and the town of Leamington itself whose citizens took over the plant.
And now French’s has decided to make ketchup from Canadian-grown tomatoes processed into tomato paste at the Leamington plant.
So while Heinz ketchup (for dipping french fries, for stirring into a bowl of cheese-and-mac lunch, or for slathering on top of a slice of just-out-of-the-oven meatloaf) is no longer made in Canada, our country’s rule that tomato juice must be made from fresh tomatoes, not paste, saved jobs at the Leamington plant, the farmers who supply it with fresh tomatoes, and the town of Leamington itself whose citizens took over the plant.
And now French’s has decided to make ketchup from Canadian-grown tomatoes processed into tomato paste at the Leamington plant.
Albertans must take heed of this good-news, feel-good story and rally around our, our, oil sands and save them in a similar fashion.
I can see the headline:
“PROVINCE WHERE BITUMEN IS KING RALLIES TO SAVE ITS OIL SANDS INDUSTRY”.
We just need a rule that gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and petro-chemicals must be made here with fresh, locally-harvested bitumen – none of which can be exported raw as dilbit – and batch the added-value products down pipelines to both coasts for domestic consumtion and export.
It will take a lot of courage, faith, hard work, entrepreneurship, investment, leadership, and the involvement and commitment of every scientist, engineer, investor, politician, bureaucrat, and citizen in this province.
Are Albertans up for it? Or do we ask Calgary and Edmonton Mayors Nenshi and Iveson and Alberta Premier Notley to roll up the sidewalks –and slink away, tails between our legs?
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
Calgary
403-281-2156
I can see the headline:
“PROVINCE WHERE BITUMEN IS KING RALLIES TO SAVE ITS OIL SANDS INDUSTRY”.
We just need a rule that gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and petro-chemicals must be made here with fresh, locally-harvested bitumen – none of which can be exported raw as dilbit – and batch the added-value products down pipelines to both coasts for domestic consumtion and export.
It will take a lot of courage, faith, hard work, entrepreneurship, investment, leadership, and the involvement and commitment of every scientist, engineer, investor, politician, bureaucrat, and citizen in this province.
Are Albertans up for it? Or do we ask Calgary and Edmonton Mayors Nenshi and Iveson and Alberta Premier Notley to roll up the sidewalks –and slink away, tails between our legs?
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
Calgary
403-281-2156
