COLUMBUS – The Chenango County-based maker of Chobani Greek-style yogurt has decided to increase the square footage of the new warehouse it is building across the road from its existing South Edmeston plant.
According to Agro Farma’s Vice President of Operations, Keven Bucklin, the company has increased the size of the structure from 100,000 to 150,000 square feet.
Bucklin said two factors played a role in Agro Farma’s decision to increase the scale of the project. One involves hold ups with the company’s plans for development of the former Procter & Gamble facility at Woods Corner in Norwich, which it acquired earlier this year.
Agro Farma is currently using the facility as its corporate headquarters, but had initially expressed a desire to convert the 88-acre campus into a production and storage facility which would create upwards of 350 jobs over the next five years. Those plans are currently on hold, according to Bucklin.
“We’re still waiting to hear from New York State,” he explained, referring to economic development incentives which have been discussed but not yet finalized.
While it waits to start on the redevelopment at Woods Corners, Agro Farma is faced with another concern – its ability to keep up with demand for its highly successful product. Something it won’t be able to do for long at its current production capacity.
“The fastest way (for us) to increase capacity is to do it here in South Edmeston,” reported Bucklin.
The warehouse itself will not house any production lines, he explained, but the space it frees up in the existing plant will enable Agro Farma to increase its capacity to “upwards of 1.2 million” cases per week. And according to Bucklin, it is that additional capacity which is driving the need for the extra 50,000 square feet of warehouse space.
“There will be some dry warehouse, but the majority of the building will be refrigerated storage,” he said.
The additional square footage has upped the total cost of the project from $22 million to approximately $30 million. Bucklin said the expansion will enable the company to grow its workforce to between 250 and 300 full-time employees over the next five years. Right now, he reported, they have approximately 200 full-time workers at the site. He also anticipates the creation of 90 construction jobs in the short term, during the expansion period.
According to Bucklin, construction crews broke ground the first week in August. One of the first orders of business was demolishing the former Rick’s Tavern, which sat on one of the two parcels Agro Farma acquired across Country Road 25 from its existing plant to accommodate the warehouse.
“It’s just a big open space now,” Bucklin said.
The Agro Farma executive said the projects overall timeline will only be held up slightly by the change in plans for the structure.
“It’s been pushed back by a month,” he reported. Now construction should be nearing completion by the end of January, with the remainder of work wrapped up by the end of the first quarter.