Conagra Foods Lamb Weston Processing Facility, USA

ConAgra Foods Lamb Weston, based in Boise, Idaho, is one of the US’s largest suppliers of frozen potato, sweet potato, appetiser and vegetable products, serving both the food service and retail markets. It has annual sales of over $1bn. With a 21% increase in sweet potato product consumption across the US in the past five years, as indicated by a recent USDA survey, ConAgra Foods decided in August 2009 to open a new sweet potato processing and freezing plant.

Additional marketing survey information from Technomic in 2007 confirmed that 85% of the US population prefer sweet potatoes as a healthier alternative to similar vegetables. The ConAgra Foods Lamb Weston sweet potato brands are ‘Sweet Things’, including medium-thick crinkle cut French fries, sweet potato chips and mildly seasoned battered dices.

New facility

The ConAgra Foods Lamb Weston facility is being constructed on a site in Delhi, north-east Louisiana. The processing facility will contain state-of-the-art processing and packaging equipment and will incorporate LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards for environmentally sustainable construction. LEED principles will include natural lighting, waste water recycling, bio gas generation for sustainable energy and minimally irrigated landscaping.

The plant, which is expected to be completed by October 2010, will produce sweet potato fries and related products from locally-grown sweet potatoes. The plant will support local growers and create more than 275 jobs, with a possible expansion to 500 if the plant is a success.

The plant has been designed in a modular fashion to allow the company to expand or modify production for other types of products, including traditional potato items, depending consumers needs. Lamb Weston president Jeff DeLapp commented: "We’ve learned from our extensive experience with sweet potatoes that they require special handling and processing ... This new processing plant is uniquely designed to enhance the quality of our sweet potato products in the most efficient way, which allows us to continue bringing value to our customers. Those customers, including some of the largest quick-service restaurant chains, seek consistent, high-quality sweet potato fries and other sweet potato products."

Investment

The initial investment to construct and outfit the plant will come to approximately $155m but the company’s total investment could exceed $200m by 2014 if growth plans are met. ConAgra is hoping for Federal incentives to offset the investment including the New Markets Tax Credit Program, which would permit the company to receive a federal income tax credit in connection with the investment.

According to an economic impact analysis conducted by Louisiana State University, the Lamb Weston Delhi facility should generate $70m in Louisiana state tax revenue and $19m in local tax revenue over the next 20 years.

Construction

In September 2009 ConAgra Foods announced that the general contractor for the Delhi plant will be Fisher & Sons of Burlington, Washington. The designers of the new plant will be FSI Architects, an architectural division of Fisher and Sons.