Hedwin closing Baltimore plant and moving to Delaware

After nearly 70 years in Baltimore, the plastic container maker Hedwin Corp. will start moving operations to Delaware early next year, with plans to shut its local operations down by 2017, its top executive said Monday.

When Fujimori Kogyo Co. Ltd. bought Hedwin for $22.2 million at a bankruptcy auction in May, Hedwin officials said the new buyer would preserve the company's jobs. Now the nearly 300 people who work at the plant on Roland Heights Avenue will need to reapply for their jobs at the new facility 67 miles from the current one in the Medfield neighborhood next to the Jones Falls Expressway.

Richard F. Broo, Hedwin's president/CEO, said the Roland Heights Avenue plant doesn't meet strict cleanliness standards for the containers that Fujimori Kogyo wants to start making in the United States. A suitable plant could not be found nearby, he said.

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