Six months after a damaging fire at Bothwell Cheese, production is back to normal at the plant in New Bothwell.
The plant was shut down following a serious fire on the morning of June 1st. Robin Redstone is Senior Communications Manager at Gay Lea Foods. She says the fire started in what is referred to as a UFRO (Ultrafiltration Reverse Osmosis) room, which is the part of the plant that is responsible for filtering out the whey; a by-product of the cheese-making process. The fire then resulted in that portion of the plant being completely shut down.
Redstone says though there was significant cleanup to be done, thankfully there were no injuries, and she credits the Hanover Fire Department with its quick response in keeping the fire confined to that portion of the plant.
"The team at Bothwell was amazing," adds Redstone. "They were able to get the packaging line up and running just a little more than a week later."
According to Redstone, the Factory Cheese Shop reopened on June 12th with limited inventory. However, she says their biggest problem following the fire was the loss of the filtration room. Redstone says they were not able to resume producing cheese until they came up with a solution for disposing of the liquid whey.
"That's where the local farmers came in," she says.
Redstone explains that between late June and late November, Bothwell Cheese was working with some local farmers and our province's environmental regulators to discard the liquid whey that was produced. The natural byproduct was placed into a small number of farms' lagoons, where it could be used as on-farm fertilizer. The temporary solution allowed the plant to resume production until repairs to the filtration room were completed. Those repairs lasted nearly six months.
"We're happy of course to report that the filtration room is officially back up and running as of the week of November 25th," says Redstone. "The team there is extremely relieved to have production back to normal and huge kudos to the team there for getting through what's been a challenging six months."
Redstone says Bothwell Cheese is now fully operational again.
"It has been a priority since the day of the fire, getting things back up to normal," she says. "Getting the team working and back to their normal processes."
But Redstone says that is not where the story ends. She notes the heartwarming part of this event is the one that involves staff.
"It's a story about adversity actually bringing people close together," she adds.
According to Redstone, immediately following the fire, the whole plant was shut down and all staff were sent home. And even though Gay Lea Foods was paying employees while they were home, Redstone says they had team members who were asking to come in on the weekend to help clean up and get things back up and running. The fire happened on a Saturday.
"(The) team really came together and I think it's brought the team at Bothwell closer together," she says. "And it's brought us all, those of us here at Gay Lea Foods closer together with the Bothwell team."
Redstone says she would also like to thank the people of New Bothwell and surrounding area.
"We felt a lot of love for Bothwell Cheese, a lot of concern when the fire happened," says Redstone. "I know the team there felt it, the team at Gay Lea Foods felt it and we're really grateful for all the support."