Oregon Fruit Products buys 165,000-square-foot plant in Salem

Oregon Fruit Products is expanding into a 165,000-square-foot food processing plant on 26 acres in southeast Salem.

The company is taking over an old NORPAC Foods plant near 22nd Street SE and Madrona Avenue SE in Salem, which went up for sale after NORPAC sold its canning business to Seneca Foods Corp last year.

Chris Sarles, chief executive of Oregon Fruit, told the Statesman Journal the company hopes to have the plant up and running this November. It will also continue to add employees as the business expands, he said.

Oregon Fruit produces a variety of products, including canned fruit sold in grocery stores and purees for food manufacturers. One of its growing lines in recent years has been purees used for craft brews and ciders.

Oregon Fruit has been on the lookout for a new facility as its processing plant and office space have become increasingly crowded. The company even looked into leaving Salem, city officials said.

But a number of factors, including how close the new location is to Interstate 5, won the company over.

One main pull of remaining in Salem was keeping the team of employees together, Sarles said. The close proximity to growers the company works with was yet another plus, he said.

The decision came after Sarles read in the newspaper that NORPAC was selling to Seneca, he said. "I just picked up the phone and called their CEO," he said. He wanted to know what they planned to do with the plant.

"That was the beginning of the conversation," he said. Things progressed quickly from there to closing, though Sarles declined to reveal the sale price.

In a statement released earlier Friday, Sarles thanked local officials including Mayor Chuck Bennett and the Strategic Economic Development Corp., the area's economic development nonprofit.

"Each group did their part and worked in concert to help ensure that the process went smoothly and quickly," Sarles said in the statement. "We are looking forward to growing our business and employment in the city where we were established."

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Since Oregon Fruit started operating in West Salem in 1935, the company has grown to employ 85 non-seasonal workers and 100 seasonal workers during the harvest season, city officials said.

The company took advantage of $300,000 in grant money from Salem's Urban Renewal Agency to help modernize the plant it is moving into, city officials said. The improvements include about $5 million worth of new equipment and building renovations.

Reach Statesman Journal reporter Jonathan Bach by phone at 503-399-6714 or by email at jbach@statesmanjournal.com.