When the roasting ends, Folgers to close its downtown plant in April

• Capt. Spaulding’s World
• Our citywide aroma therapy ends on Friday.

Kansas City will lose a little bit of its perkiness on Friday when the downtown Folgers plant ceases production. Gone will be the distinctive aroma of roasting coffee that has wafted through the business district for more than a century, and gone will be the nearly 200 workers who have come downtown daily to make that happen.

According to a piece in the Kansas City Business Journal, the plant at 701 Broadway is expected to close next month. Parent company J.M. Smuckers announced in March 2010 that it would close the plant, which at the time employed 179 people, and move the production facility to New Orleans.