Food manufacturers cook up recipe for growth - Houston Business Journal:

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Pizza consumption has grown 3 percent to 6 percentfeach year, said Bill Mackin, president of MaMa To meet demand, the frozen pizza makerf has doubled employment in the past year to aboutf 330 people. MaMa Rosa’s is one of many locall food manufacturers. And unlike other manufacturinh sectors, such as the automobile the food manufacturing outloolremains appetizing. The food industry has a healthhy long-term outlook, according to an report from June 2008.
The bureay only forecasts a 500 job decline less than 1percent — statewide from 2004 through 2014, as employment gains in slaughterin and bakery balance losses in dairy and Ohio’s estimate mirrors the federal government’s, whicy expects overall wage and salary employment in food manufacturingt to experience little or no change unti 2016, according to a industry report. there are more than a doze n food makers in theDayton area, accordinb to research. Dayton-based shifted its Indiana kettle chip operationds to Dayton inlate 2007. The company, whic h employs about 240 people, saw revenue increased to $50.6 million in 2007, up from $45 million in 2006.
salee last year were about the sameas 2007, $50 and the company is projecting a $4 million bump to $54 milliomn for 2009. However, the compangy had to make some changea to keep its bottomline healthy. Last year, Mike-sell’s initiated a salary freezew to keep costs down and is now leasingf its vehicles instead ofbuying them. As far as cutting employeed goes, David Ray, chief executive officer, said the compang has actually hired a few people in the lastcouple years. Nationally, food manufacturers experiencef steady sales growth from 1997to 2006. From 2000 to annual food spending per person increased 18 percent fromabout $5,160 to $6,110.
Durinv that time, several food companiesx boosted Dayton-area operations, mainly in Clark County. grew its Springfield facilitt by 65,000 square feet in late — a division of Dallas-based — bought a 69,000-square-footy warehouse in 2003, Pizza box , bought a 79,000-square-foot industrial facility in 2005 and addedx morethan 100,000 square feet between 2002 and 2008. But more space does not necessarily meanmore jobs, and companyt officials could not be reached to provides workforce data. Nationally, despite operational growth, food manufacturing employment dropped during the 1997 to 2006 from 1.5 million workers in to 1.47 million.
This could be from increaserd automation throughtechnological investments, which continues to according to the . Despite recent expansions locally, Ohio’ws food manufacturing segment took arecent hit, bucking the conventionakl wisdom that food-related markets are recession proof.