I bought my last bag of Cape Cod Potato Chips yesterday.
I wasn’t going to do it, but the party-size chips were on sale for $3.99 a bag at Market Basket, a dollar less than usual. I always like to buy local.
So, I scooped up a bag, thinking that now that the once-admired and iconic Cape Cod company was leaving Massachusetts, I was leaving it.
The once locally founded and owned Hyannis potato chip company will be shut down by its current owner, Campbell Soup Co., and its operations will be moved out of Massachusetts.
The company said that 49 people will lose their jobs and that the Cape Cod company produced only 4% of the chips anyway.
Nevertheless, whether the Hyannis plant produced 4% or 40% of the chips will be the last time I buy them, even though I liked them and admired the lighthouse on the packaging.
The package looks so like Cape Cod, so like Massachusetts, so like New England.
It is just too bad that there is no way to force Campbell Soup to take the chips and leave the lighthouse behind.
After all, how are Massachusetts consumers going to react when they find that their Cape Cod Potato Chips with the lighthouse logo are no longer made in Massachusetts but are being shipped in from Campbell Soup plants in Beloit, Wisconsin, Hanover, Pennsylvania, and Charlotte, North Carolina?
None of those places have a lighthouse. Not good.
Now, the loss of 49 jobs may not mean much in the big picture, but they mean a lot if one of the jobs is yours.
What is interesting about it all is that the founders of Cape Cod Potato Chips lived the American Dream, first starting the company and then eventually selling it to a major company. That too is part of the American dream.
The company was founded by brothers Steve and Jude Bernard in 1980 in a Hyannis storefront where they sold their kettle-cooked chips.
After struggling for years, the family-owned business finally took off with sales in supermarkets in Massachusetts and on the East Coast.
Media outlets did favorable stories about the company’s success. Its sales reached $30 million when the family sold the company, which eventually ended up in the hands of Campbell Soup.
In leaving Massachusetts, Cape Cod Potato is joining other companies leaving Massachusetts for greener pastures in states with lower taxes.
Just last week, Panera Bread, Zipcar, and Thermo Fisher Scientific each announced major closures or relocations out of state due to high taxes, high energy costs, and climate change regulations.
Panera Bread is closing its Franklin bakery and eliminating 92 jobs. Zipcar is shutting down its Boston headquarters, cutting 125 jobs, and Thermo Fisher Scientific is closing its Franklin facility and laying off 103 people.
This is happening while Gov. Maura Healey talks about a strong Massachusetts economy, while, under her very nose, businesses and people are leaving the state.
Cape Cod Potato Chips is a special case. Its plant became a tourist attraction, a part of the Cape’s allure. It at least deserved some comment — if not help — from the Healey administration
A hands-on governor would have at least visited the plant and made an attractive proposal to Campbell Soup to reconsider shutting the Hyannis plant down.
She could also have shown the same concern for the workers losing their jobs as she does for the criminal illegal immigrants she is protecting. That is what a governor is supposed to do.
Instead, listening to her administration is like hearing the old Bee Gees singing about “when the lights all went out in Massachusetts.”
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
