Prime close finishing operations at Berwick
18 November 2008Prime have announced that their Berwick, Maine, leather finishing plant is to close and all leather finishing operations transferred to their Hartland, Maine, facility. The bulk of production should be in place by October.
Prime Tanning merged with Cudahy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Irving Tannery in Hartland in November 2007. As part of the reorganisation, the Cudahy tannery was closed in May and leather production transferred to Prime’s Hartland finishing unit.
Prime will continue to use the Berwick offices as their temporary headquarters while they look for buyers for the site. Prime’s CEO Robert Moore said: ‘Like many manufacturing businesses in the US we have been adversely affected by unprecedented increases in the cost of energy and chemicals and the general economic slowdown. These unforeseen developments have hastened our need to eliminate excess costs and overheads and our success as a company depends upon our ability to act decisively to achieve that result.’
At the end of March Prime also announced their intention to merge with Shanghai Richina Leather Co Ltd (SRL) to form Prime Leather International.
