Monday, July 23, 2012

A tale of two ice-cream companies

Burt Baskin and Irvine Robbins were long gone by the time their namesake company became a cash cow for Mitt Romney's loot 'n plunder hedge fund, and the previous post gives you a thumbnail sketch of what happened then.

But I would be remiss if I tarred all capitalists with that same tawdry brush. Just a half hour down the road from Falling Downs is the Chapman's Ice Cream company. Chapman's was started in 1973 by a local couple who worked and worked and worked some more to build their little operation. They made a reputation for not only a great product, but for fair dealings with their workers, forward-looking environmental processes, and an obsessive attention to product quality and customer satisfaction.

When their factory burned to the ground in 2009 the first thought among many of the locals was, there goes my job. In the first few days the local consensus was that this fire meant the end of Chapman's.

Then co-founder Penney Chapman made an announcement that stunned the community. Not only would they rebuild the plant right there in Markdale, they would keep paying their workers while the plant was being rebuilt!

And they did!

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