NEW CENTURY, Kan. — New Century is home to the world’s largest spreads manufacturer. Spreads are products like Country Crock or I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.
Upfield’s New Century plant uses new technology and more than 300 employees to efficiently produce 260,000 tons of plant-based butter spreads a year.
A partnership between Upfield and CJ Logistics will help them increase that tonnage to 440,000 a year but decrease their CO2 emissions by 358,000 tons.
“Upfield is the largest plant-based consumer goods company in the world, and we have a strong robust ESG agenda, and we have significant objectives in lowering our CO2 footprint,” said Ronnie Gomes, Upfield’s New Century site director.
The company is building a bridge between the current plant and the soon-to-be cold storage distribution center. Finished palettes of product would be moved across the bridge to the cold storage center instead of shuttling the product offsite.
It’s going to be 291,000 square feet with 100,000 square feet still available for outside customers.
“The partnership with CJ logistics and the new distribution center would enable us to reduce our current shuttling footprint,” Gomes said. “Also reduce our operating costs and would also enable future growth and expansion.”
This project is already helping them grow and adding to the KC job landscape by adding at least 75 positions.
As a plant-based product company, they hope this project helps reduce their carbon footprint while also expanding the workforce in the Kansas City area.
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