Blommer Chocolate closing downtown Chicago manufacturing plant: 'Everybody knows this smell'

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Blommer Chocolate announced in a news release Friday that it would close its Chicago manufacturing plant and expand and transform other facilities.

The Chicago facility, located at 600 W. Kinzie St., is the original manufacturing plant of the Blommer group, founded in 1939, the release said.

After more than eight decades of the famous scent of chocolate looming over downtown, its source at the Blommer Chocolate factory on West Kinzie Street is shutting down.

"I think everybody knows this smell, and I think that's going to be one of the biggest questions, 'what happens to this smell?'" Senior Vice-President of Blommer Chocolate Robert Karr said.

It's bittersweet news for residents who live near the factory.

"It was definitely one of the reasons I wanted to move here, because it smells like chocolate," neighbor Caitlin Smith said.

Home for some in the Fulton River District won't be the same.

"When I pull into my parking garage, and open my car door and smell chocolate, it's like, I know I'm home," neighbor Alexis Dabdoub said.

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"The age of the facility, the age of the actual equipment, increased operating costs, and not being competitive in today's market. Those were some of the issues," Senior Vice-President of Operations, Blommer Chocolate Greg Phillips said.

The closure impacts 260 employees at the plant, who left the facility Friday for the last time with severance packages in hand.

"We're bridging our employees to go work at other places in the industry," Karr said. "Each of those packets explains to each person how we're going to support them."

The Chicago location opening in 1939 made Blommer the third largest industrial chocolate maker in the world.

"It is an historic icon for this neighborhood," Dabdoub said

The corporate headquarters, Applications Lab and New Research and Development Center will remain in downtown Chicago at the Merchandise Mart.

The lab capabilities in Merchandise Mart will be expanded, as well, Blommer said.

"It was an incredibly challenging yet inevitable decision to close the Chicago plant. However, in order to propel Blommer to the next level, we must embrace progress, transformation and elevation," said Mark Okita, chief operating officer and senior vice president of commercial. "Our planned expansion to the Campbellford Canada operation is the next step toward our transformation. 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."

While Friday was the last day of operations, the factory will officially close May 31, giving the company time to move all the equipment out of the decades-old facility.

"We're sad that this day came, but it made all that we are possible," Karr said.