Campbell plans expansion of premium refrigerated soup business

18/07/05 Campbell Soup Company has announced plans to build a new $80 million, 220,000-square-foot culinary campus in Everett, Wash. for its fast-growing premium refrigerated soup business. The new facility will enable the company's StockPot business to increase its production capacity by 50% when it relocates from its present campus in Woodinville, Wash. The new StockPot facility is expected to start up in the summer of 2006.

Campbell acquired StockPot Inc., which makes restaurant-quality, fresh-refrigerated soups and sauces for the food service industry, in 1998. StockPot's products, which have achieved double-digit growth over the past four years, are sold across the U.S. as part of Campbell's Away From Home division. StockPot is a share leader in the refrigerated soup category in the food service and supermarket channels.

In early April, King County, Wash., officials and StockPot reached an agreement to relocate the company's existing culinary campus to allow for the development of the Brightwater Treatment Plant north of Woodinville in Snohomish County. As part of that agreement, a $23.45 million relocation benefits package was offered by King County, which was intended to assist StockPot to relocate within King, Snohomish or Pierce counties, and thereby maintain over 400 jobs and $21 million in annual company purchases in the region.

StockPot's new 18-acre culinary campus will be located within the Panattoni Development Company's Seaway Business Center, which is southwest of downtown Everett. The proposed design and site will also allow for future expansion.

Campbell Soup Company is a global manufacturer and marketer of high quality soup, sauce, beverage, baking, biscuit, confectionery and prepared food products. Founded in 1869, the company has a portfolio of more than 20 market-leading brands, and had over $7 billion in sales in 2004.

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