Steamed home canners give icy reception to return of lids

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/02/2003 (8379 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Home canners who were steamed over a decision by American-based Bernardin to discontinue production of their favoured Gem jar lid got what they wanted. Now they’re really mad.

The company announced last week it would start producing the lids again in time for the 2003 canning season.

The announcement may have pulled the company out of the pressure cooker, but it plunged it directly into an icy cold-water bath. And it seems former customers have every intention of keeping it there.

It has something to do with timing.

Bernardin officials were adamant in the face of consumer petitions, personal appeals and widespread media coverage last year that their decision was absolutely final.

The explanation went something like this: the equipment used to produce the 78-millimetre lid in Canada was obsolete. The company had centralized lid production at its plant in Indiana and the market simply wasn’t big enough to support a production line for that size of lid. No one has manufactured the jars with that size of opening in decades and the market for the lids was so small, the company wasn’t making enough money from them.

Consumers who have handed these jars down from generation to generation were told in rather patronizing tones that they can’t expect to recycle those jars forever. Their only option would be to buy new ones that fit the lid sizes Bernardin still makes — jars made by Bernardin of course.

Thousands of disgruntled Prairie canners stubbornly clung to their jars anyway and organized through a Web site operated by St. Andrews resident Lori Blight.

There were reports of potential manufacturers stepping up to fill the void.

One eventually did.

On Jan. 23, Canadian Home Canning Inc., a company formed by former Bernardin employee Gordon Tirebuck, announced it would begin production of the disposable lids in time for the 2003 canning season.

Well, if Bernardin’s corporate heart didn’t suddenly warm to the idea of supplying what it now terms its “valued home canners.”

Initially, the company announced it would do a onetime production run — not a bad way to turn a quick profit as people scrambled to amass a lifetime supply.

Then on Jan. 28, officials grudgingly announced via press release they would reinstate continuous production — even though “the demand for the 78-mm closures had been and is expected to be a very small part of the total market.”

Consumers are still skeptical.

“Now all of a sudden competition has appeared on the market,” says Blight. “Now all of a sudden Bernardin can make the lids? Unbelievable! As many have stated, too little too late.”

Those posting comments on the Web site bulletin board are less polite.

The prevailing view is that Canadian home canners will be best served if they support a Canadian company. They are pressuring retailers to do the same.

The only thing left for Bernardin to do is pull another corporate ploy — and try wooing its customers back through pricing.

But since it is now a foreign manufacturer that has been pretty forthright on how expensive these lids are to produce, it will have to tread carefully down that path — lest some accuse it of dumping.

Laura Rance is associate editor of the Farmers’ Independent Weekly. She can be reached at 792-4382 or e-mail lrance@fiwonline.com