Irish town on edge after China trade lost

The powder was so lucrative that some people here called it cocaine.

- ALEXANDRA STEVENSON

The men and women making pricey infant formula for Chinese babies at a factory in Askeaton, a small town in the southwestern Irish county of Limerick, had helped to turn around the fortunes of a place long overlooked.

So when the people in suits unexpectedly arrived from Switzerland two years ago to deliver a death blow to the more than 540 workers employed at the plant, the first reaction was disbelief.

No one could believe that Nestlé, a multinational food giant, would simply shutter a sophisticated plant into which it had invested hundreds of millions of dollars.

“All of a sudden, the factory looked drab,’ said Carmel Ryan, the unofficial town historian who runs the Askeaton Tourist Office and whose husband, Michael, worked at the factory for 34 years before retiring. “It was like the sunlight was gone from behind it”

It's not hard to find someone in this town of 1,100 who worked at the plant or has a story to share about a friend or relative who was laid off. The factory was such a large presence that when a baby was born, tins of milk powder would appear on the doorstep, a gift from a neighbour working there.

From the banks of the Deel River in the centre of town, the factory, originally built in 1974 and passing through various owners before Nestlé acquired it, looked like a lumpy green mass on the horizon. But people in town considered it one of the best places in Ireland to work. The jobs at the factory were so stable that the local credit union needed only a worker's most recent pay slip to give out a loan.

Then came the Nestlé announcement.

After the swarm of local reporters filled their notebooks with stories of the job losses to come and the national television crews packed up their vans, the initial shock gave way to suspicion.