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Former Lykes plant is on the rebound
By JENNIFER GOLDBLATT
© St. Petersburg Times, DADE CITY -- There was a visible sign Wednesday that change is brewing at the former Lykes Pasco juice plant in Dade City: About 25 city and business leaders were being given tours of the facility. More than two years after the plant was sold and 40 percent of the staff there was laid off, it became the site of the county's quarterly Economic Development Council meeting Wednesday. City leaders said it was an encouraging sign. "In the past, there was almost a wall between this plant and Dade City, and it seems to have dissipated," said City Manager Doug Dryman. "For the last few years, it was hard to gauge what kind of impact (the plant was) having here." The former Lykes Pasco plant and the Vitality Food Service industrial juice supplier in Zephyrhills were acquired in 1999 by two investors. The new owners moved juice squeezing operations closer to the major citrus growing centers and closed the juicing operation at the Dade City plant, laying off 400 people. They also renamed the plant Pasco Beverage and moved the Vitality headquarters to Tampa. That parent company controls Vitality Food Services, which sells dispensed juice and coffee to institutions such as hotels, restaurants and hospitals. Pasco Beverage makes roughly 1,200 juices that sell under store brand names for retailers such as Wal-Mart and Food Lion. Lawrence P. Higgins, president and chief operating officer of Pasco Beverage, declined to disclose annual sales but said he expected them to grow by 8 to 12 percent in the coming year. He also wants to add 24 employees to his 640-person staff there. Bob Peiser, chairman of Vitality Beverages, said management is focusing more heavily on the Dade City plant than in the past. The plant "is a major part of our strategy," Peiser said. "We recognize its importance to the community, and we have been active in trying to increase the production going through it." "We've done a very good job in creating a market and for distributing our products, and we've done less of a good job as we would like in running our plants efficiently," he said, adding that he was referring to getting supplies to the plant at the right time and making sure that workers are busy all the time and losses of juice at the plant are as low as possible. "It's been a wild ride;the plant was in much more transition than we thought it was when we bought it," he said. "They've done a good job, but we still got more to do." In the past year, the company has also been busy trying to rebuild its relationship with the local business community. The company donated $10,000 for the new Dade City YMCA and the Fourth of July celebration, and Vitality chairman Bob Peiser has made various community appearances.
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From today's Pasco Times |
