Management and employees at Vineland, N.J.-based F&S Produce Co. Inc. are recovering today from a fire on Tuesday at the west end of its Rosenhayn processing plant in South New Jersey.
It’s unclear at this time how the fire started, but no employees were injured during the incident, according to The Daily Journal.
“We are currently in the process of assessing damages and recovery,” Lori Maddalena, F&S chief financial officer, told The Packer Wednesday.
“Our primary concern was the safety our employees. Our evacuation protocols that we have in place enabled us to safely evacuate all of our employees from the plant without injury,” according to a company statement released at 3 p.m. Tuesday.
Firefighters were continuing to battle the blaze until at least three hours after it broke out shortly after noon.
“We are grateful for their efforts during this devastating event,” according to the statement. “In the coming days, our management team will be assessing the damages and working to place our employees in alternate positions at one of our other plants. We would like to thank our community for their outpouring of concern and support at this time.”
The company has three plants: a retail production plant and main office in Vineland, an industrial fresh production plant at 913 Bridgeton Ave. in Rosenhayn and an industrial frozen production plant on 730 Lebanon Road also in Rosenhayn, according to its website.
This fire was possibly in the frozen production plant.
The company’s 125,000 square feet of facilities process more than 100 million pounds of fresh-cut produce annually for retail, food service and industrial customers, according to the website.
