Sara Lee Corp. Debuts New Meat-Slicing Facility

“This investment underlines our commitment to our core protein category and provides us with the ability to deliver to our customers and consumers the safest, highest quality, most cost-effective product possible.”

6/6/2011 --- Sara Lee Corp. announced the opening of its state-of-the-art sliced meats manufacturing facility in Kansas City, Kan. The facility, located at 4612 Speaker Road, represents an investment from Sara Lee of over $140 million and is a leader in processing technology. The facility will manufacture sliced deli meats for Sara Lee under the Hillshire Farm and Sara Lee Deli brands.

“We are proud to celebrate our new Kansas City facility and showcase the state-of-the-art features that make it an industry leader in processing,” said CJ Fraleigh, chief executive officer, Sara Lee North America. “This investment underlines our commitment to our core protein category and provides us with the ability to deliver to our customers and consumers the safest, highest quality, most cost-effective product possible.”

The Kansas City sliced meats facility utilizes robotic systems and allows “no touch” processing from the initial raw meat phase through the finished product. Due to engineering processes, the facility processing time is reduced by 50% compared to conventional manufacturing and requires half of the employees normally required to operate such a facility.