1 | Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump repeated his claim Tuesday evening that he would stop eating Oreos, citing the cookie maker's decision to close a plant in Chicago and move it to Mexico. |
2 | Trump's claim is partly true. |
3 | Oreo's parent company Mondelez International Inc. said last month that it decided to invest $130 million in building four new production lines at a plant in Mexico, which will replace nine older production lines at its Chicago plant. |
4 | That will mean the number of jobs at the Chicago plant will go from about 1,200 to about 600, said Laurie Guzzinati, a Mondelez representative. |
5 | But the plant in Chicago will remain open. |
6 | Guzzinati said the decision to invest in the Mexico plant came after discussions with union representatives for workers at the Chicago plant. |
7 | She said the company determined that the new production lines would cost $46 million less per year in Mexico than in Chicago, and said labor was "one of many factors." |
8 | Guzzinati noted that Oreos continue to be made in some U.S. plants, including in New Jersey, Oregon and Virginia. |
9 | The Mondelez plant in Salinas, Mexico, opened in late 2014, and the four additional production lines are expected to be completed by mid-2016. |
10 | Two of those lines will make Oreo cookies, Guzzinati said. |