Blue Diamond Growers, a nonprofit grower-owned cooperative and a processor and marketer of almonds, has begun expanding its processing facility in Turlock, California. The company held a groundbreaking ceremony Jan. 29 at the 200,000-s.f. manufacturing plant. The new addition is part of Blue Diamond’s continued plans to expand its value-added product lines and deliver new almond products worldwide.
The new 52,000-s.f. building will be the latest construction of the three-phased project that will eventually yield a total of about 500,000 s.f. of building space over the next nine years. This phase of the project is scheduled to be completed in Spring 2020. The expansion consists of new automated processing and packaging equipment.
“We are pleased to build our partnership with the Turlock community by investing to expand our facilities and workforce,” said Mark Jansen, Blue Diamond president and CEO. “We are creating the healthiest almond products and delivering the benefits of almonds to the world. This project allows Blue Diamond to meet the growing demand for our innovative almond products.”
Blue Diamond Chairman of the Board Dan Cummings of Chico added, “We are thankful to our growers who own this cooperative for entrusting their almonds to us so we can continue to make valuable investments. This project gives them a secure future in the almond business.”
“On behalf of the Turlock community, we are tremendously excited about the expansion of Blue Diamond Growers state of the art processing facilities here in Turlock,” said Turlock Mayor Amy Bublak. “We know Blue Diamond has other company locations where they could have placed this expansion, but we are proud they chose Turlock. We look forward to the additional jobs this expansion will bring.”
