Reser's Fine Foods, Ready Meal Production Plant Topeka, Kansas, USA

In April 2006 Reser’s Fine Foods Inc, based in Oregon, opened the latest of its food processing facilities in Topeka, Kansas. The new 200,000ft² facility cost $36m to construct and will make side dishes for the convenience ready meal market. The side dishes will mostly consist of mashed potatoes, pasta and rice, and production at the new plant will include some of the new Shedd’s Country Crock side dishes from Unilever (contract manufacturing).

The facility is capable of producing over 1 million lbs of product side dishes ready to ship per day and will initially employ 300 people from the local area. The new Deer Creek Facility was constructed on a 30 acre brown-field site at 3215 S.E. 6th Street, which was formerly the site of the Farmland Foods hot dog operation. Reser’s was offered economic incentives to bring jobs to Topeka by Go Topeka, the city development agency. The incentive package offered came to $400 per job for up to 100 new jobs. The incentives use money from the economic development sales tax.

OTHER PLANTS AND SALES TARGETS

In the Topeka area Reser’s also has three other production plants (salad plant, burrito plant, potato plant) totalling 220,000ft², a distribution centre and a truck service facility. Reser’s employs a total of 750 people in Topeka. It is believed that the new facility will help the company expand further into the prepared, ready-to-eat category of food business.

Total sales from Reser’s in 2005 were over US$500m and that was expected to increase to US$600m in 2006. Sales have increased as the company has landed some big accounts, including Safeway. The company has also increased sales at Dillons and Kroger’s stores.

Sales of refrigerated side dishes rose 155% between 2001 and 2006 and are forecast to grow another 71% between 2006 and 2011, so the future for the refrigerated side dishes seems to be bright. One reason for this could be because refrigerated side dishes have that perceived freshness advantage and give consumers a superior flavour and texture profile, much closer to homemade food.

PRODUCTION AT THE PLANT

The Deer Creek facility will produce 17 truckloads of potato products and other side dishes per day. The new plant will produce mashed potatoes and fresh-cut potatoes, such as hash browns and cubed and shredded potatoes, and side dishes, such as macaroni and cheese, broccoli and cheese and herb and rice dishes.

A distribution centre to handle the logistics of the volume of products manufactured at the site has also been built with refrigerated storage areas and warehousing. Some of the more well known Reser’s products include Garlicky mashed potatoes, Cheese-infused rice, Home-style baked beans, and Reser’s Potato Express (mash, original cuts and seasoned cuts).

CONSTRUCTION

The cost of the Deer Creek facility was originally estimated at $23m when the plan was to just move into the former Farmland Foods plant. But the Farmland plant was not up to modern day hygiene standards and the Reser’s management decided to demolish it and rebuild from a fresh start. Robinson Construction was the company awarded the contract to construct the new plant building and distribution centre.

The building had to be constructed to strict guidelines so that it would satisfy the hygiene standards of the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture). The older salad plant in Topeka is due to get a renovation in 2006 which will require an investment of up to US$3m.