When North Kansas City, Mo.-based C&C Produce Inc. decided to take part in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmers to Families Food Box program, it gave the company an incentive to move forward with some needed enhancements, said vice president Nick Conforti, who owns the firm along with president Joe Cali.
C&C Produce bought and assembled three additional packing lines to help handle added volume from the food box program.
A new onion machine, potato bagging machines and several forklifts, pallet jacks and a 200-foot-long, three-tier warehouse racking system with 720 pallet spaces also were added.
The racking system will be used to store finished potatoes and onions after the food box program has ended and will provide some welcome added space.
“Even though we have 200,000 square feet, we use every inch of it,” Conforti said.
“This will help us consolidate those products and make everything more organized,” he said. “The more organized you are, the better and the stronger the company becomes from an operational standpoint.”
Conforti said the company really had no choice but to make the improvements.
“We were just out of space,” he said. “It was an investment that needed to be made anyway.”
There also are new things coming from C&C’s Cool Creations fresh-cut division.
Newly hired director of operations Fred Sentumbwe launched a new salsa made in-house with Hatch chile peppers during the summer.
“Hatch peppers have great flavor,” Conforti said.
There’s not enough of the salsa for widespread distribution, so the company selected a couple of its retail partners to feature it.
The retailers love it, he said.
“Sales keep growing every week.”
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