Blount Fine Foods is a leading marketer and manufacturer of premium prepared soups, main dishes and side dishes in the retail and food service industries, and a market leader in fresh retail soups. The company announced that it has purchased in Portland, Oregon A high-quality food manufacturing plant. Located at 17711 NE Riverside Parkway, the facility was once the headquarters of Harry's Fresh Foods and provides Blount with an additional 80,000 square feet of production capacity for the production of premium restaurant quality soups and side dishes.

The Portland plant expanded Blount’s network of production plants to include its headquarters in Fall River, Massachusetts, and plants in Warren, Rhode Island and McKinney, Texas. The company also announced that it has partnered with a third-party logistics company (3PL) to provide expanded distribution and logistics in the United States. Blount has 3PL locations in Taunton, Massachusetts, Fort Worth, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia. In 2020, the company will also designate two other 3PL locations in Oregon and the Midwest.

Todd Blount, President and CEO of Blount Fine Foods, said: “The market demand for all soups, especially our high-quality soups, is constantly increasing. The taste, size and dining occasions have created for our customers. More opportunities." "The addition of this facility has meaningfully improved our nationwide network of factories and distribution points, allowing us to deliver the best raw materials to the ideal factory, and then deliver the best quality in the most effective way. Products are shipped to customers. In many ways, we hope this is equivalent to a steady supply of the best soup in the world."

By the next soup season starting in July, when Blount puts the new facilities into operation in time, the company expects to invest more than $25 million to ensure that it truly reaches the most advanced level. The company will add all new processing equipment, including a sophisticated "spiral hydraulic cooler" for rapid cooling of the soup to maintain freshness, and a proprietary cooking kettle that is both large enough to increase production efficiency and small enough to allow the soup to cool. Mainly handmade in small batches.

"For several years, the factory has hired smart, capable, experienced and entrepreneurial soup and side dish manufacturers, many of whom will work with us," Blunt added. "We are excited about Portland and its'gourmet' culture, the acquisition of quality talent, and the development of our national network to meaningfully reduce the total mileage driven by our products."

Blount expects that the plant will employ approximately 50 employees when it first opens in the second half of 2020, of which up to six will be relocated from other Blount plants to Portland. The one to be relocated is Blount veteran Douglas Gregoire, who has been appointed as the general manager of the new factory.

When the new plant is fully operational in 2021, Blount expects to employ up to 150 employees there.

"By purchasing this factory in Portland, we have increased redundancy, flexibility, diversity, breadth and depth, all of which benefit our customers across the country and strengthen our leadership in the industry. "Blount concluded.

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