SALINAS VALLEY — One year after a devastating fire destroyed Taylor Farms’ food processing plant in Salinas, the agriculture company will reopen the facility later this month in time for the start of the Salinas Valley planting season.
Following months of construction, the foodservice location on Abbott Street is scheduled to be in full operation at the end of April.
“Thank you to every helping hand that made this rebuild process possible,” said Bruce Taylor, chairman and CEO of Taylor Farms. “Thank you to our Taylor Farms team for their teamwork and flexibility during this time, the tremendous community and many city officials whose support we received, and the hardworking construction teams and engineers that worked tirelessly on this project.”
According to Taylor, the Salinas facility is particularly meaningful to the family-owned company because it is where the business began in California nearly 30 years ago and is the foundation that provided the momentum for the rest of the country.
“We are thrilled to be back in this facility and once again serve our customers from our flagship location,” Taylor said.
Last year, a fire broke out shortly after 7 p.m. on April 13 at the 225,000-square-foot facility, which had been closed for the winter but was in the process of restarting operations for the season. No one was injured, but the building was a total loss.
The cause was believed to have been from a welding project that sparked a fire in a wall.
Now, a year later, the new state-of-the-art facility will have the capacity to process more than 15 million pounds of produce per week, with the help of at least 1,000 employees who will work at the location once it reopens.
“I can speak for our entire Taylor Farms family and say we are all enthusiastic for the reopening of this facility,” said Mark Borman, president of Taylor Farms foodservice. “Through a tragic event came the outpouring of support from our team, community and customers. We are forever grateful.”
Taylor Farms is North America’s leading producer of salads and fresh-cut vegetables, with 22 production locations and 24,000 team members across the country. During the rebuild, the company kept its Salinas workers employed by moving them to other facilities.
“Taylor Farms is excited to be back up and running for the start of the Salinas season in this new state-of-the-art facility,” Taylor said.
what NEW food safety equipment and procedures will be incorporated in this new facility? I am sure it will have the utmost in efficiency and productivity. Taylor knows food safety is job one and it would be interesting in what the different types of development in food safety will now be built in . As I am sure this is something the public is most interested in.