Food can supplier shutting Stockton plant

Food can supplier shutting Stockton plant Consumer packaging giant Silgan Holdings Inc. will close its food can manufacturing plant near the Port of Stockton in June, terminating or relocating about 110 employees.
   The plant has been making metal cans for San Joaquin Valley-grown produce for more than 75 years. Several can-manufacturing companies operated the facility until Silgan purchased Carnation's can division from Nestle in 1987. The closure is a direct result of the decline in San Joaquin County's food-processing industry.
   SHI's operating arm, Silgan Containers Corp. of Woodland Hills, is the largest metal food can supplier in the United States and produces half of the national output of metal food cans. Net sales in 2005 were $1.8 billion. SCC has additional California can plants in Antioch, Riverbank, Modesto, Sacramento and Kingsburg, as well as two-dozen others throughout the country.
   Stamford, Conn.-based SHI said it would have no comment on the plant closure. However, the impending closure of the Stockton site and can plants in Valencia, and St. Paul, Minn., were described in a recent company press release as 'strategic cost-reduction initiatives.'
   According to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Silgan officials told Stockton employees in October that the plant would be closed at the end of the second quarter of 2007. According to company releases, it expects to spend $4.6 million on employee severance pay and benefits and an additional $1.5 million on unspecified 'exit costs.'