US company plans to open food storage and distribution site in Watford

California-based BCFoods says it will open a storage and distribution plant in an industrial building in Watford.

“It was one of those situations where they were looking for a building and we just happened to have the right building,” said Todd Case, mayor of Warwick Township.

The site, located near Front Street in Watford, was previously the home of Androck, a wire products manufacturer that closed in 2006.

“The square footage was there — the location was key, being so close to the (Highway) 402 corridor,” Case said.

“We couldn’t be more pleased that they’ve chosen our community to expand their business.”

Case said the company hasn’t said how many workers will be employed at the site but “there’s an opportunity for many jobs, and I guess it all depends on how the business expands.”

BCFoods said in a news release the site includes additional space for “future production capabilities.”

“We’re thrilled to be opening this new facility, which represents a major investment in the future of our company,” Mike Bray, BCFoods North American president, said in the release.

“With this new facility, we’ll be able to offer our Canadian customers a more local distribution site with regional sales support while also helping to reduce costs and our GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions by lowering our overall transportation mileage by bringing material directly into Canada.”

The company said BCFoods Canada is expected to “grow significantly over the next few years.”

“This will create new jobs in the local community, with positions including production line workers, operations support and quality control technicians,” the company said.

“BCFoods is committed to hiring locally and providing opportunities for growth and advancement within the company.”

The company’s website said customers for its dehydrated vegetables, spices and other products are primarily in consumer packaged goods, the food and beverage industry and pet food.

Matthew Slotwinski, senior economic development officer with the Sarnia Lambton Economic Partnership, said the company has “a relatively large Canadian market” and the Watford site is believed to be BCFoods first plant in Canada.

“They’ll be starting with a relatively small crew that has the potential to grow,” Slotwinski said.

The economic partnership heard from the Ontario Food Cluster — an organization of municipalities in southern Ontario working to attract food and beverage companies — that the company was looking at the area, Slotwinski said.

“With lots of help from SLEP and other organizations, and our own internal people, we were lucky enough to convince BCFoods that Watford was a good location for them,” Case said.

“We’re very excited they made their investment in our community and there will be employment opportunities for people who live in this area.”