Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods, the employee-owned provider of whole-grain and gluten-free foods, plans a major expansion of its production and distribution facilities to continue to meet growing demand for its gluten-free ingredients.
The Milwaukie, Ore.-based company expects to open its new world distribution center in January 2014 in Clackamas County two miles from the company’s headquarters just outside of Portland, Ore. The company has secured a 125,000-square-foot facility, with options for additional adjoining space, and will move all storage and distribution to the new building, freeing up additional production space at its headquarters. The move was driven by a need for additional raw commodity storage space and anticipated production growth over the next five years.
The new distribution center is large enough to warehouse 11,000 pallets and offers easy truck access, with more than 30 loading docks and proximity to the Interstate 205, as well as a railway connection.
The space freed up at the company’s headquarters by the move will be used for expanding the production of whole-grain and gluten-free foods. Bob’s Red Mill has been a leader in providing all-natural, tested, safe and gluten-free foods for more than three decades, and the company has seen a dramatic rise in demand for its gluten-free products in recent years.
All of its more than 80 gluten-free flours, cereals, baking mixes and grains are made in a dedicated 100 percent gluten-free facility, and the expansion will add another 70,000 square feet of production and packaging space to that facility – more than tripling its current size. In all, the company now has a total of 480,000 square feet of manufacturing, distribution, retail and storage space.
“When we moved into our current World Headquarters in 2007, we anticipated the space would meet our needs for 10 to 15 years,” said Bob Moore, founder, president and CEO of the company who will turn 85 in February 2014 and remains active in the day-to-day business of the company. “But we’ve just been going like gangbusters, and already we need this additional space to meet the increasing worldwide customer demand.”
The company also announced promotions of seven longtime employees to senior vice president and vice president positions. The moves are intended to put into place the next generation of leadership for the employee-owned company, Moore said.
“When I turned the company over to the employees in 2010 with the ESOP [Employee Stock Ownership Plan], I did so as the ultimate way to reward employees for their contributions to our ongoing success and growth,” Moore said. “Today, we are further rewarding many loyal and longtime employees, while also adding to our production and distribution capacity. The goal of all of these efforts is to put into place a solid foundation for the future of this company.”
