Fulton, New York

Last week I delivered 16 tons of frozen Mexican broccoli to a Birdseye frozen food packaging plant in this small town near the shores of lake Ontario. "Fulton" is the name of two towns in New York (good trivia question) so I googled the name before leaving Ohio to ensure I was going to the right one. What I discovered is that this Birdseye plant will be closed by the end of 2011, un-employing 300 people in this town of less than 10,000. The official reason is that it is "unprofitable" to keep this plant operating. I'm sure the real reason is probably closer to "it's more profitable" to close it and relocate those services elsewhere. Wisconsin in this case - a state without unions. Were Birdseye a B-Corp, this would not be happening.

I spoke to a couple of the people at the plant about what their plans were for keeping the plant open. With the "local foods" movement, and being only 300 miles from two of the largest metropolitan areas in the US (Boston and NYC), and being possibly the only frozen foods processing plant in the US if not the world powered entirely by renewable energy (they get their power from Niagara), and being in the middle of the New York agricultural region - one of the most productive in the country for fruit and vegetables - I thought surely someone has come up with a business plan that would keep the place open. Hell, I already came up with a name for the new company - The Fulton Fresh Frozen Fruit (and vegetables) Cooperative (F4VC), and envisioned a classic 1800s logo to go with it... Alas, no one could tell me of any such plans. Boy is it tempting for me to get in the middle of a turn-around like that. What a ton of fun that would be.

Fulton is named after the inventor of the Steamship - Robert Fulton - who was also a member of the Erie Canal commission. It was also the original home of Nestle chocolate. As I wandered around the town I couldn't help but notice the incredible natural resource (in addition to those mentioned above) that Fulton has - flowing water. The town is split by the Oswego river which flows into Lake Ontario about ten miles downstream and is also part of the Erie Canal system (hence the Fulton connection).

I've never seen locks up close. Very cool. And I was able to walk all along the edge of the locks - no restrictions.

On both sides of the river were small electrical generation plants powered by the river. I couldn't tell if they were still operating or not.

The day I was there it had been raining for more than two weeks off and on and the river was a raging torrent of Colorado river proportions (well, close).

This town got me thinking that when gasoline/diesel gets REALLY expensive, towns like this which had been founded in pre-petroleum days will be prime real-estate. Besides being on a major highway near large population centers, it is also on a major waterway able to reduce the cost of transporting goods by a factor of ten (compared to ground transport) down to NYC or out to the rest of the world via the St. Lawrence. AND, this town could generate it's own power from the river. If I were going to invest in real-estate for the long-term, I'd choose old mill towns like Fulton.