EIC Alyse Thompson-Richards recaps some recent plant openings and expansions in the food and beverage industry, including Mars’ new Nature’s Bakery facility, CJ Schwan’s distribution center, Chomps’ Missouri manufacturing facility, Westrock Coffee’s single-serve coffee products plant and Puratos’ pilot bakery facility.
Located on William J. Clark Drive in Conway, Ark., the 525,000-sq.-ft. facility will manufacture single-serve coffee products and potentially expand into additional product formats in the future.
The facility, which is operated by WSP and dedicated to Chomps production, is expected to create approximately 250 full-time jobs, contributing to the local economy and surrounding areas.
In addition to the robotic manufacturing operations, the campus will combine multiple Yaskawa Drives and Motion facilities into one location over the next three to eight years, eventually encompassing more than 800,000 sq. ft. of manufacturing, packaging and training space.
The company will consolidate operations and add manufacturing at a 90,000-sq.-ft. building that is under construction in Pennsylvania’s Lower Nazareth and Bethlehem townships, which is expected to be open next year.
On Demand Food manufacturers face many challenges, including maintaining quality, managing labor shortages and sustaining the safety of their products, workforce and facilities. How can producers possibly keep up?
