New native management has sparked efforts by the corporate to be extra seen and concerned
Josh Self, the plant supervisor at Amy’s Kitchen, greets fair-goers Wednesday from a sales space arrange on the Jackson County Truthful. [Andy Atkinson / Mail Tribune]
From sponsoring free parking on the Jackson County Truthful to serving to native nonprofits, Amy’s Kitchen is making its greatest effort in a decade and a half to satisfy its Southern Oregon neighbors.
The Petaluma, California-based vegetarian prepared-foods juggernaut has largely saved a low profile since its enlargement to Southern Oregon in 2006. However Josh Self, who’s managed the corporate’s White Metropolis plant since October, has a brand new imaginative and prescient that features a extra outstanding place in the area people.
“Some folks don’t know we’re native,” Self stated Wednesday in a cellphone interview whereas on his option to a sales space on the Jackson County Truthful. It’s the corporate’s first-ever sales space in almost 16 years in Southern Oregon.
Self stated he admires the neighborhood presence of different giant employers within the Rogue Valley, equivalent to how Harry & David sponsors a Medford baseball park and is lively in such local people occasions as Medford’s Pear Blossom parade.
“We need to be concerned in out of doors actions, supporting the issues that match our model, that match what Amy’s is about,” Self stated.
Self stated his major aim since taking up the position of plant supervisor in October is making a “higher neighborhood presence.” He described co-sponsoring free honest parking with Folks’s Financial institution of Commerce as an early step towards that aim.
“That was one of many first large issues we’ve finished for the neighborhood,” Self stated.
They need to do extra. Self stated the corporate donated greater than 150,000 meals to the Oregon Meals Financial institution final yr, and earlier this spring it started a partnership with Neighborhood Works to offer meals for victims of home violence staying on the native nonprofit’s Dunn Home short-term shelter.
“We’re searching for extra alternatives domestically to offer donations,” Self stated.
Throughout the Labor Day 2020 fires, The Expo turned the mass evacuation web site for folks displaced by each the Almeda and South Obenchain fires. Self stated a part of the explanation Amy’s is beginning its outreach with the honest is as a result of subsequent time there’s a neighborhood emergency, they’ll have the connection in place with The Expo to assist.
“I feel the important thing to it’s to community so folks know we’re obtainable,” Self stated. “As we mature in what we’re making an attempt to do, who is aware of the place we’ll find yourself?”
All of it provides as much as the corporate’s greatest try at visibility since Oct. 24, 2006, when Amy’s reduce the ribbon on its 176,000-square-foot facility in White Metropolis.
Based on Mail Tribune archives, the arrival drew a crowd that included Rachel and Andy Berliner — who based the corporate in 1987 to create vegetarian meals appropriate for his or her daughter, Amy — and concerned then Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who flipped the ceremonial swap.
The plant off Antelope Highway — which added one other 120,000 sq. ft in 2015 — was the corporate’s first enlargement exterior of California. Along with its processing vegetation in Santa Rosa and San Jose, California, the privately held firm additionally operates a processing plant in Pocatello, Idaho.
Self stated Pocatello has a bigger footprint, however the Southern Oregon plant and its 800 workers is at present the corporate’s largest producer. When it began in 2006, it primarily was a pizza plant.
The Southern Oregon frozen-food line prepares pizza, entrees, meal bowls and all the gluten-free burritos the corporate makes.
“The wheat burritos are made in Santa Rosa,” Self stated. The Santa Rosa plant makes most of the firm’s extra labor-intensive merchandise.
On a typical day, the Southern Oregon plant makes 80,000 gluten-free burritos, as much as 80,000 pizzas and 250,000 cans of soups, chili and refried beans.
As with so many different firms in Southern Oregon and across the nation, a key cause behind the native outreach is recruiting. The corporate at present has 30 positions open, with the best wants being upkeep mechanics and manufacturing.
Particularly on the canning line, kitchen roles are operator positions. Workers in these positions can work with as many as 77,000 kilos of tomatoes going right into a kettle at a time.
“We name it a kitchen, but it surely’s very large-scale,” Self stated.
He stated the plant in White Metropolis goals to rent and develop expertise from inside, and he described plant positions as jobs with plenty of upward mobility. Of the ten managers that report back to him, 5 began within the hourly ranks.
“All of my administration workers grew as this plant grew,” Self stated. “It’s simply irreplaceable to have that.
“They will name upon these previous experiences to set us up for achievement.”
Attain Mail Tribune net editor Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or nmorgan@rosebudmeda.com. Observe him on Twitter @MTwebeditor.
