Wrigley Closes Last Chicago Plant

By Rachelle Bowden in Food on Jul 1, 2005 11:44AM

Wrigley's just completed its acquisition of Life Savers and Altoids from Kraft - that's the cool news. The shit thing is that they're also shutting down factories and laying off hundreds workers as a part of the deal.

One of the plants being closed is a 94-year-old chewing gum factory on the South Side. The production is being moved to Yorkville, which is about 40 miles west of here. The plant once had about 1,700 workers, but Wrigley says it's down to about 600 now. Some of the employees are being transferred, others are going on early retirement or and the rest are being laid off.

Wrigley says the decision to move production was a difficult one, and is stressing that they'll always maintain their corporate HQ here and will continue to have their R&D facility here. .. eh, they just won't make the actual products here, huh?

This story got us wondering what chewing gum is made of, how it's made, and what it's history is. Like did someone just start chewing on some sap, or what?

Plant image via ABC7