A goodbye to the Cape Cod Chip factory in Hyannis

People pretty much know where Cape Cod Chips are made. It's right there in the name, and for years, the back of the bags showed a map of the factory's location.

But now, the Hyannis factory is closing — ending an era in local chip manufacturing.

The parent company of Campbell's Soup, which acquired the chip brand in 2018, says 49 jobs will be affected when the facility closes in the spring.

Few people have known that factory better than Nicole Bernard Dawes. She’s now a thriving food and beverage entrepreneur in her own right, the founder of brands such as Late July and Nixie. But her origins in American food-making stem from her father’s famed chip business.

“Growing up, I spent a lot of time at the factory,” Dawes said in an interview with WBUR. “After school I would very frequently go to the factory and do my homework there or occasionally help out sorting the chips. I just was there all the time.”

Dawes returned to the family business as an adult. She served as director of marketing, introducing ideas such as the popular reduced fat line of chips. Occasionally, she accompanied guests on walk-through tours of the factory. In 1998, she was even featured on an episode of the PBS show “Arthur,” where she led a group of school children through the chip-making process and answered questions about green potato chips.

She described the factory as tight knit and nimble. The company’s brand expanded during her tenure and earned its ranks among a wave of other independent New England companies such as Ben and Jerry’s, Sam Adams and Stonyfield.

“ We did crazy PR things,” Dawes recalled. “When ‘Seinfeld’ was going off the air, we came up with this idea that if someone sent us nothing, you know, because it was the ‘show about nothing,’ that we would send them a free bag of chips.” The office received “thousands and thousands and thousands of nothing,” she said. Packages such as empty envelopes, empty cassette tapes, and big boxes of air.

Her father sold Cape Cod Chips to snack company Lance in 1999. Dawes moved on to her own food and beverage ventures.

Although it’s been years since she worked for Cape Cod Chips, she said Campbell’s decision to close the factory still feels like a loss.

“My heart breaks for the people who lost their jobs because this is a tough time to lose a job.

It's a tough time to get a job,” Dawes expressed. “American food factory jobs are incredible jobs,” also noting the promotability within factories. “American food manufacturing is something that we do really need to protect. In this case it is, it's a loss to the community.”

The news is also a personal loss for Dawes, who still calls Cape Cod home.

“ I will admit it hit me pretty hard,” she said. “My father passed away a number of years ago and there was just something about every time I would drive by that plant and smell the potato chips cooking, it just felt like a little piece of home. And when I found out that it was closing, it did feel a little bit like losing like that last piece of my dad.”

Campbell’s said the factory, which used to be one of the Cape’s top tourist destinations, will shut down in April after four decades of operation. In a statement announcing the closure, the company said Cape Cod Chips would be produced in other facilities in its network, in places such as Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Cape Cod Chips will still be available in supermarkets across the country. They just won’t be made on Cape Cod.

For Dawes, she said there’s still a way for her to revisit that place filled with so many memories.

“Potato chips for me are like that ‘Ratatouille’ moment. Like when I smell a fresh cooked potato, like a fried potato, I am immediately transported back to that factory floor and being with my parents and being a kid,” she mused. “That was my childhood.”