Frozen pizzas like these will be the focus of a new $40 million Amy's Kitchen factory in White City. It’s expected to come online in seven weeks. (Mail Tribune / Jim Craven)WHITE CITY — General manager Pat Holtz likens the activity surrounding Amy's Kitchen plant construction to an ant farm.
At every turn, from luring the Santa Rosa, Calif., organic frozen food manufacturer to Jackson County, to drawing up plans, obtaining permits and providing displaced fairy shrimp new digs, it's taken a coordinated effort to get the $40 million factory ready for a mid-October start-up.
A small army has toiled during the summer's unrelenting heat to install ovens, freezers, cookers, mixing kettles and assorted equipment shipped from Amy's California headquarters.
"When you have as many different disciplines and contractors as we have here, it takes a lot of communication," Holtz says. "I have to stay in touch with the project managers trying to make sure the electricians aren't on top of people trying to erect walls and people putting in equipment."
It took a while to determine what the plant's first production line would make before management settled on pizza. Amy's Kitchen is a popular maker of prepared vegetarian entrees.
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Crews in recent days have been installing the Rademaker pizza line, which snakes through the 165,000-square-foot plant in an S-shape.
"The pizza line is very close to being installed," Holtz says. "It goes to the north, south and back to north again. It takes up half of the building from the prep area to crust manufacturing, to topping, to crust cooling."
Holtz says Amy's is still recruiting for some line supervisor positions, many shift positions, material handling, maintenance and production.
"We begin production training in mid-September, starting with the pizza line and then we'll move on from there at the beginning of the year," Holtz says. "There are a number of different choices, but we're not exactly sure what will go in."
Perhaps the greatest obstacle associated with the project has been the relocation of vernal pools from what is now the plant's parking area. It's been more than 20 months since the company reached an agreement with the city of Medford to buy the Whetstone Industrial Park property for $350,000, but it wasn't until this summer that clearance came to relocate vernal pools containing fairy shrimp.
"That's an issue we just got past a month ago," says Tom Hall, president of S&B James Construction Co. "We had all kinds of biologists come out to help us relocate vernal pools to the back of the property, where there is room for more vernal pools."
Before that, Hall says, workers skirted the area.
"It's in a parking and maneuvering area for trucks, literally right in front of the loading docks," Hall says. "You couldn't run the plant with it there. It's something I thought could've been done last fall."
The factory itself covers 41„2 acres and is barely big enough to contain the equipment.
"One tank was 6 inches too tall, so we moved it 2 feet so that it wasn't underneath the beam," Hall says. But there haven't been any bad gotchas. For a plant this size, we're very pleased."
With the majority of the work done and one large tank left to install, Hall anticipates construction will be finished in time to make way for production in seven weeks.
"Like any project like this," he says, "it's crunch time."
Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or at business@mailtribune.com
Up to 450 employees will work at plant
Amy's Kitchen White City production will start slow in mid-October and build a head of steam.
General manager Pat Holtz's first and second shift will begin making frozen organic pizzas with a small crew for the first two weeks, before revving up the line with 250 to 300 employees.
When the entree production lines kick in during the middle of 2007, Holtz estimates the plant will have 400 to 450 employees.
"The next set of lines aren't as labor-intensive," he said.
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