Kraft Pizza expanding Little Chute plant

Jeff Richgels  —  8/22/2008 3:44 pm

Kraft Pizza Co., the maker of DiGiorno frozen pizza, announced Thursday that it has started construction of a 100,000-square-foot expansion of its plant in Little Chute.

The expansion will add about 300 jobs, the company said in a news release. The project also includes a new parking lot.

A new pizza crust bakery line and assembly line will be installed, enabling a significant increase in production capacity.

Construction is expected to be completed by the end of this year, with equipment installation and production start-up of the new lines planned for April 2009.

Kraft Pizza, a unit of Northfield, Ill.-based food giant Kraft Foods Inc., also announced a three-year sponsorship deal that makes DiGiorno the official pizza of the Green Bay Packers, with exclusive rights to concession pizza sales at Lambeau Field.

The dollar values of the expansion and the sponsorship were not disclosed.

"This is an exciting day that highlights Kraft Pizza's strong heritage and continuing commitment in Wisconsin," Kraft Pizza President Tim Cofer said in a statement. "We make almost all of our Kraft Pizza brands at our plants in Little Chute and Medford. We also purchase more than 75 percent of the cheese we use in our pizzas from Wisconsin."

Little Chute's frozen pizza history goes back to the 1960s, to privately-held Jack's Frozen Pizza. In 1989, Jack's purchased a supermarket distribution center and renovated it as a manufacturing facility to support the burgeoning growth of the Jack's brand in the Midwest. In 1992, Kraft Foods, which had earlier purchased Tombstone Pizza, acquired Jack's. Within two years, the facility doubled capacity, and began a growth spiral as Wisconsin-made Jack's and Tombstone brands became household words nationwide. DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza made its debut in 1995.

Jeff Richgels  —  8/22/2008 3:44 pm