Source:  Press Release, 11/17/10

Mt. Olive Pickle Company, Inc. is expected to break ground this week on a 138,000-square-foot expansion of its distribution center, nearly doubling its warehouse capacity at that facility.

Built in 1997, the company’s 170,000-square-foot distribution center is located at the corner of Old Mount Olive Highway and Northeast Church Road. It is one of four warehouse facilities the company owns in the Mount Olive area.

The expansion, set to go on the north end of the distribution center, will streamline Mt. Olive’s shipping and receiving.

The four new bay doors that will be constructed on the north end will serve as a receiving center only, reserving the original 10 bay doors on the east side for shipping. In addition, the expansion should generate greater efficiencies managing inventories.

“We’ll be able to send more product directly to the DC, and hopefully it will reduce the handling costs we have moving product back and forth between warehouses,” said Bobby Frye, executive vice president of Mt. Olive.

The expanded facility will be climate-controlled to enhance product quality. It will also be a green facility, utilizing the latest technologies in insulation, high efficiency lighting and air handling.

The project, designed by engineering firm Criser Troutman Tanner of Wilmington, is set to be completed by May 2011. R.N. Rouse Construction of Goldsboro is the general contractor.

Company sales growth – a 36 percent increase in cases sold over the last four years – is driving the expansion. The increased warehouse space will enable the company to better accommodate that recent growth, as well as position it for additional sales growth in the future.

“As our sales grow, our inventories grow, and we need to expand our storage space,” Frye said. “Our growth is facilitating the need for additional storage capacity.”

Mt. Olive packs and sells the second best selling brand of pickles in the U.S., although in some sales reporting periods in the past year it led the pickle category in unit sales. The company’s line of peppers is number one in the country, and Mt. Olive is the number one brand of pickles in the Southeast.

No additional employees are expected to be hired as part of the expansion. But as production has increased over the last five years, the company gradually added employees – a rise of 28 percent since 2005.

Based at the Corner of Cucumber & Vine and in business since 1926, Mt. Olive Pickle Company employs over 500 people year round, and it hires another 300 seasonal workers at the height of the cucumber intake season each summer.