Tomatoes at Highbury Canco ready to be processed. (BlackburnNews photo)Tomatoes at Highbury Canco ready to be processed. (BlackburnNews photo)
Sarnia

Bumper Tomato Crop Extends Highbury-Canco Season

Tomato season wrapped up Friday at Highbury Canco.

The processing company ran longer than expected because of a bumper tomato crop.

President and CEO Sam Diab says it means they're processing significantly more paste.

"We were expecting to be done about a week ago," says Diab. "Our crop this year is about 10% over what our planting intentions were."

Diab says the company was not contractually obligated to take the tomatoes, but it would have been a shame to leave them in the field to rot.

It also means the last day of work for the roughly 120 seasonal workers who are employed by the plant during the harvest season.

320 other full-time employees work at the plant.

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President and CEO Sam Diab says it means they're processing significantly more paste than usual.

[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/diab1.mp3"][/audio]

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Diab says they were expecting to be done this year's processing about a week before the season ended last Friday.

[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/diab2.mp3"][/audio]

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While the company wasn't obligated to take those extra tomatoes, Sam Diab says there were easily able to process them.

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