Scotsburn closing St. John's ice cream plant December 9

Scotsburn Ice Cream Company will stopmaking its frozen treatsin St. John's, telling customers Tuesday that the Newfoundland plant will close Dec. 9.

Unifor Local 597 representative Carolyn Wricesat in on the meeting when the news came down that the plant would be shut down.

"It was total shockand devastation." she told CBC News.

"To know that come December the 9th there are going to be jobs gone."

Wrice said some employees got layoff notices Sunday, leaving only 85 full-time staff at the St. John's facility.

According toWrice,the remaining employees have been told theywouldget 40 hours a week of work until Dec. 9.

The company said it is transferring production to other plants in Truro, N.S., and Lachute, Que.

"As far as we were concerned, production was steady and work was there available," said Wrice.

"They hired 30 or 40 people, extra staff."

Ward 2 Coun.Jonathan Galgaycalls the decision to shut down the facility disappointing.

"I have communicated my disappointment to the company upon hearing the news earlier this afternoon," he said to CBC News in a written statement.

"A closure of this magnitude will certainly have an impact on the local economy."

Wricesaidthe union had just signed a three-year collective bargaining agreement back in May.

"We have members there who are married couples, and it's going to be devastating."

"This was another difficult decision for our company to make, but we will treat our St. John's employees fairly," wrote Jeff Burrows, Scotsburn'schief operating officer, in a news release.

"Scotsburn is under tremendous pressure to reduce costs and become more efficient as our ice cream industry is very competitive," he said, citing large multinationals and a "highly consolidated retail grocery business."

"We asked them today if there was anything that we as a union could do, along with the membership, to prevent this from happening and they basically told us no," Wrice said.

"It was going to happen."

Burrows said the company has been operating out of St. John's since 1988.

Calls to his office by CBC for further comment on the closure were not returned.

Scotsburn announced earlier this year that it would close a popsicle plant in Saint John, N.B., in September, laying off 43 employees there.