From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

markets, including the United States. But Wallace and
Harrison McCain were also cautious, not committing
to any market until they had the financial and other resources
necessary to succeed.
They went first to Great Britain, then to Australia and
continental Europe, because the competition in those
places was weaker than in the United States. McCain
had to become a major force in its other markets before
it would have the clout to compete with Simplot, Lamb
Weston, and Ore-Ida, the big companies that dominated
the U.S. frozen potato industry.
McCain began exporting to the United States in 1969.
Rather than battle the big companies for a share of the national market, Wallace and
Harrison decided McCain would begin as a regional player, and so focused on the
densely populated Northeast. The major processors were located in the west. McCain
therefore had lower shipping costs to the Northeast than the U.S. companies and thus
could offer competitive prices.
In 1975, an agricultural cooperative based in Syracuse, New York, called McCain
to inquire whether the Canadian company would be interested in buying a french fry
plant in Washburn, Maine. The timing couldn’t have been better: McCain was ready
to establish a U.S. base and, given its strategy of focusing at first on the eastern market,
nearby Maine was the perfect place for it.
George McClure went to meet with the co-op officials in Syracuse. He discovered
that “nobody there knew anything about the french fry factory. It was an orphan.”
McCain bought it and went to work upgrading all its systems. The next year, McCain
bought another french fry plant in Easton, just thirty kilometres down the road from
Washburn and only forty minutes from Florenceville.
Ian Cameron, a Canadian, came back from Australia to take charge of the U.S.
plant operation from a base in Easton. In those early years in Maine, the company
was able to operate in the black, but the return on investment was nothing to get excited
about. McCain had not yet introduced its own brand. Instead, it was bidding for
private-label business from supermarket chains in the region.
As usual, McCain was in it for the long haul and, with an eye to the future, made
a big investment in upgrading the Easton plant. The renovated factory was more efficient
than Washburn, and it made good business sense to close Washburn. Naturally,
the Washburn employees, some of whom had worked at the factory for more than
twenty years, weren’t happy. McCain offered them all jobs at Easton, where a second
french fry line was being installed, but ninety employees refused, considering
the twenty-minute drive too onerous. “They thought it was too far away,” recalls
Cameron. “It was a very parochial little town. Some of the people had never been out
of Maine.”
When Wallace McCain learned that ninety of the Washburn workers would not
go to Easton, he began to have second thoughts. “We were ready to announce the
closure of the Washburn plant on a Monday morning,” recalls Cameron. At eleven
o’clock on Friday night, just three days before the scheduled announcement, Wallace
McCain called Cameron. He said, “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to do it.”
Cameron was stunned. He said, “Wallace, it’s all done. We’ve already told the state
governor. Now we’re just going to make it public.”
Wallace said, “One of the joys I get in life is employing people. We’ve never shut a
factory down. I really have difficulty doing it.”
“Wallace, we’ve offered them all jobs, a lot of them are coming to Easton. The ones
who aren’t coming are getting a pretty good package.”
After a long pause, Wallace told Cameron, “I’m going to think about it. If I don’t
call you back, go ahead with it. But I might be calling you back.”
He didn’t call back and the Washburn plant was closed. Meanwhile, production at
Easton grew steadily and the factory needed labour. Most of the Washburn workers
who at first had declined to work at Easton eventually took jobs there.
McCain continued to build its base in the U.S. Northeast. In 1987, it bought a large
french fry plant in Presque Isle, Maine, from the J.R. Simplot Company. Three years
previously, it had acquired Tater Meal, another company in the same town. Tater Meal
Fall colours in Maine. LEFt: Cultivating a potato
field in Maine, 2003.
RIGht: Scouting for diseases
and sampling at a trial field in
Maine, 2005.
166 f rom the Ground up
south of the border 167