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There was little joy in Spudland when Ore-Ida decided to pull out.
But it shouldn't have come as a surprise.
A year earlier, parent corporation H.J. Heinz Co. chopped the size of Ore-Ida by more than half, in terms of' employment, when it sold the company's food-service division to McCain Foods, Ltd., for half a billion bucks.
With that went a potato-processing plant in Burley dating from 1961, and Ore-Ida's claim to the spudative fame of having production in Idaho. Employment at headquarters on ParkCenter Boulevard, a stone's throw from Albertson's, Inc., dropped by 100 to about 350.
While Ore-Ida may have been "alive and well and important to Heinz," as company spokesman Grant Jones asserted late in 1997, its continued presence in Boise seemed something of an anomaly.
This was particularly so in light of Heinz's...