Fall River, Massachusetts – Blount Fine Foods, the leading marketer and maker of premium, prepared soups, entrees, and side dishes today announced it will be adding 75 million pounds, approximately a 30% increase to their annual capacity, for the Fall 2022 and Winter 2023 seasons. The increase is being made to satisfy the surge in consumer demand for these items under the Blount, Panera Bread and Private Label brands.
In the current year, Blount plans to double the capacity at its recently opened soup plant in Portland, Oregon by adding a 2nd spiral hydro-chiller and additional kettles and fillers by the end of the summer 2022. These investments allow Portland to support more lines of business.
To support this growth Blount will also add 400 new employees to the current base of 1,700 employees to sustain not only the expansion at Portland but to assist with the creation of a third shift in its other three locations: Fall River, MA, Warren, RI, and McKinney, TX. “Blount has a great employee culture, and we are implementing a third shift to better balance the workload amongst our hard-working and committed plant employees while also expanding overall production capacity,” said Todd Blount, President and Chief Executive of Blount Fine Foods.
In addition to the contributions above, Blount has also invested in advanced cooking and filling equipment to continue to increase quality, consistency and efficiency – while maintaining people and food-safety. William Bigelow, Blount’s Chief Growth Officer believes, “the investment of advanced cooking into the production process allows us to optimize the flavor and consistency of our ingredients while also reducing the production time for each batch.”
To better distribute this increased capacity Blount has negotiated multiple 3PL partnerships around the country to expedite shipping to meet their customers fulfillment goals. “Our customers are facing increased pressure to have product in stock to support increasing consumer demand” indicated Bob Sewall, Chief Customer Officer. “it is imperative we have the right product at the right place at the right time so our customers meet the consumer’s needs.”
“With addition of the additional capacity and taking steps to streamline the distribution of our product while reinforcing our industry leading product quality, the company is well positioned to grow with our customers increased demand for all of our products”, concluded Blount.
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About Blount Fine Foods
Opened in 1946, Blount Fine Foods is a fifth-generation family-owned and operated developer, manufacturer, and marketer of fresh prepared foods. The company produces hundreds of premium prepared foods for restaurants, institutions, retailers and club stores in all 50 states. Blount is the market leader in fresh soup at retail, both in chilled cups and hot-to-go, a position it continues to solidify since being the first to provide a national brand of refrigerated soup in exclusive partnership with Panera Bread to sell under the “Panera at Home” label. Panera at Home continues to be the top-selling brand of refrigerated soup in the country. The company also makes and markets its own brands of soups and entrees under Blount Clam Shack and Blount’s Family Kitchen brands.
