(WBBM NEWSRADIO) – The longtime Blommer Chocolate factory near Chicago’s Loop will be closed under a companywide restructuring, owners announced Friday.
The cocoa-processing plant along Kinzie near Milwaukee dates back to 1939 and is known for emitting a sweet smell throughout the neighborhood.
"We have a balcony facing west, so, every time we open our patio doors we get the sweet smell of brownies," neighbor Mark Ortman told WBBM Newsradio. "It'll be bittersweet to know that won't be the case anymore."
But company officials say the old building in River West is expensive to keep up.
“It was an incredibly challenging yet inevitable decision to close the Chicago plant,” Mark Okita, Blommer’s Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of Commercial, said in a prepared statement. “This marks a new chapter for us as Blommer, as well as our customers. It is imperative that we challenge ourselves aggressively to ensure that this becomes the best chapter yet.”
Blommer will retain a corporate headquarters at the nearby Merchandise Mart and expand research and development there, while keeping three other plants open in the United States and Canada, officials said. Blommer is expected to invest $100 million in those surviving production facilities.
With more than 900 employees, Blommer Chocolate Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fuji Oil Holdings, is the largest cocoa processor and ingredient chocolate supplier in North America, the company said.
No further information was released about the Chicago factory site or the employees who work there.
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