Safeway selling Emporia plant
American Nutrition buys pet food producer
By Scott Rochat
Friday, January 26, 2007
Safeway officials confirmed this morning that the company is selling its Emporia Pet Food plant to American Nutrition.
Teena Massingill, Safeway’s manager of corporate public affairs, said that escrow on the sale would close by the end of March. She said that American Nutrition would continue to operate the plant and expected to invest in making it more efficient.
The Emporia plant has 43 employees.
“We are expecting to see great changes, changes that we would not be able to make as a company,” she said.
She referred other questions about the future of the plant to American Nutrition’s chief financial officer, Ron Haws. Haws was not immediately available for comment.
When Safeway opened the Emporia plant in 1980, it was in a central location for the company — the chain had 2,400 stores nationwide including 100 that were part of the Kansas City division. These days, the nearest Safeway is in the Denver area and most of the chain’s remaining 1,767 stores are clustered on the West Coast.
“One of the reasons we owned the plant is that in 1980, it was difficult to find a pet-food provider who could supply all of our 2,400 stores,” Massingill said. “That’s not the case anymore. There are others, such as American Nutrition, who can do the job more efficiently than we could.”
American Nutrition is based out of Ogden, Utah. The firm produces more than 290,000 tons of pet foods and snacks a year, according to the company’s Web site. The company also has subsidiaries in Phoenix and in Woodland, Wash.