Litehouse announces Utah expansion

SANDPOINT — Food manufacturer Litehouse Inc. will build a new facility in the southern Utah city of Hurricane — an expected investment of more than $10 million that will eventually add 162 new full-time positions in the rural community.

“We are excited to announce that our business has grown to the point where we are in need of another facility,” Edward Hawkins, CEO and founder said. “Our expansion projections have been to secure a site in the area of the country that will provide Litehouse with logistical synergies for many of our customers in the Southwestern region.”

Hawkins said Litehouse corporate office and our core job force will remain in Sandpoint and said the company’s facility in Lowell, Mich., is seeing expansion.

“We are strongly committed to these communities and our employees in them.,” he added.

Litehouse president Jim Frank said the decision to open a facility in Hurricane was prompted by the area’s positive economic and business conditions and the opportunity to better serve its customers.

The region not only offers competitive utility and labor rates, but Frank said the company received a “great incentive package” from the state of Utah. Incentives include assistance from the local community, and a single taxpayer, post-performance incentive of $502,400 as a tax credit over 10 years.

The products produced in the new Utah plant will be a mix of existing lines as well as products from Green Garden Foods, a Kent, Wash., company acquired by Litehouse earlier this year, Frank said.

Litehouse expects the new facility to open in the second quarter of 2011.

Litehouse began as a restaurant facility more than 50 years ago in the resort town of Hope, Idaho. The company became famous for its blue cheese dressing and, as a result, expanded into the retail market. Today, Litehouse is employee owned and has sales in excess of $120 million with more than 500 employees based in two manufacturing facilities in Idaho and Michigan.