B&M Beans Closing Portland Factory After 150 Years In Operation

According to the Portland Press Herald, after over 150 years in business B&M Beans will be closing their iconic Maine baked beans factory.

Originally opened as Burnham & Morrill Company in 1867. Originally, they made canned meats and vegetables. It was not until the 1920s that the factory began producing the product they are most known for: baked beans. From 1927 on, those beans, along with hot dogs, became mainstays on Saturday night dinner in Maine.

In the last fifty years it has gone through several ownership changes. First, it was purchased by PET Foods in the 1970s. In the 1990s, it was purchased by Pillsbury. It was bought by the current owner, B&G Foods Inc., in 1999. While you have probably never heard of B&G, it is the parent company of many well known household brands, including Green Giant, Crisco, Ortega, Cream of Wheat and Clabber Girl.

The company plans to move the current production to the Midwest. They plan to completely shutter the plant by the end of the year.

The process started earlier this month, as the massive brick smokestack was decommissioned.

So, what is going to happen to the B&M facility? It will be turned into a technology graduate school, research center and business incubator run by Roux Industries. There is no specific timeframe of when that technology campus will be open.

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In the years leading up to the pandemic, Augusta (and the rest of Central Maine) was seeing a massive revitalization. It seemed like every few weeks, we were hearing about a new restaurant, store, or other business. That process did continue, at a slower pace, during the pandemic. Now that things are getting back to normal, we want to know what you'd like to see in these spaces. Take a look and then message us through Facebook or our app.

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Categories: Offbeat