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(Massillon, Ohio) - Shearer’s Foods will be moving forward on a new 200,000 square-foot headquarters and production facility here, just at a different industrial park than was first planned. The project, originally slated for the Nova Technology Park, will now be built at Northeast Ohio Commercial Park because it offered more room, according to Randy Whisler, project manager for Shearer’s Foods. Both industrial parks are in the Massillon area.

The new site is more than 30 acres, double what the company would have had at the original site, Whisler said. Schumacher Construction will be the general contractor on the project and groundbreaking is slated for early October. The new facility should be complete next fall.

Brewster, Ohio-based Shearer’s Foods makes potato chips, tortilla chips and cheese curls for retail sale in Ohio and surrounding states. The company – which claims to be the largest producer of kettle-cooked potato chips in the United States - also does private label contract manufacturer for clients that distribute products nationally.

“We have absolutely run out of room,” said Melissa Shearer, vice president of communications, who project the company will make 100 million pounds of snacks this year. Corporate offices will move to the new facility, about six miles from its current site which will be kept open for production.

Shearer expects the company to hire at least 180 because of the expansion.

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The company has about 700 employees, including 125 in Lubbock, Texas at a former Frito Lay plant purchased last summer. Shearer’s also has a distribution facility in Massillon and small distribution centers in Cleveland, Youngstown and Pittsburgh.

Shearer’s roots go back to grocery store started by William Shearer in the early 1900’s. The transformation to manufacturing started in the 1970s when Jack and Rosemary Shearer bought a snack food distributorship. By the late 70s’, they decided they could make a product better than what they were delivering and jumped into the industry with a used fryer. In 1982, the company bought the facility in Brewster and over the years made several additions.

The family is still involved in the business - Robert J. Shearer serves as chief executive - but now the company also has investor and management owners.

Shearer's Foods, Inc.

(888) GREAT-CHIPS

http://www.shearers.com

By Joe Cogliano II

(joecog2@sbcglobal.net)