Baking & Snack - March 2006 - 40

Mountain Top wasn't the only big project on Mission's
calendar during 2005. In June, the company acquired
three tortilla plants at Phoenix, AZ; New Brighton, MN;
and Fort Worth, TX, from CHS Foods, St. Paul, MN. Information systems, operating procedures and even processing technology all had to be brought into the Mission
Foods scheme, according to Mr. Solano, who managed
the integration of the former CHS Fort Worth facility
while supervising startup at Mountain Top.

ᮡ With bulk ingredients for flour tortillas delivered by the PLC-run ingredient
system, minor ingredients are added by hand.
LP, all headquartered at Irving, TX. Azteca Milling now
has five corn milling facilities in the US, while the parent
company's tortilla equipment concern, Tecnomaíz, operates a manufacturing plant in Mexico at Monterrey.
In 1949, Gruma (then known as Molinos Azteca)
revolutionized the way tortillas were made at home
and commercially with the introduction of Maseca
brand "instant" corn flour. Gruma first entered US
markets in 1977 establishing a Mission Foods tortilla
plant at Canoga Park, CA (see Baking & Snack of February 1988, Page 6). Tecnomaíz began production of
machinery for tortilla processing a year later, and in
1982, the company opened its first US corn flour mill
at Edinburg, TX.
Canoga Park soon proved too small to contain Mission's growing business, so the company replaced it and
other smaller-capacity sites in Southern California with
the huge Olympic Avenue plant at City of Commerce,
CA (see Baking & Snack of September 1990, Page 6). The
company's Rancho Cucamonga plant qualified as the
world's largest tortilla factory when it opened in 1996
(see Baking & Snack of December 1996, Page 16). Both
Olympic and Rancho Cucamonga now output more
than 300 million lb of tortillas each annually.

42 / BAKING & SNACK / March 2006

MISSION CRITICAL. "The idea of a Northeastern plant
has been around for a number of years," Mr. Solano
said. Mission Foods tortillas have been sold in the region for some time now. The plant at Jefferson, GA,
supplied food service clients, while starting in 2000, the
Goldsboro, NC, facility produced for retail operators.
As a market, the Northeast reflects the national trend
that sees the consumption of Tex-Mex food products
grow 25% per year. "Our business has been here a long
time," he continued, "but now we wanted to get closer
to the market."
Site selection efforts turned serious in 2004. Reportedly, Mission Foods looked at more than 20 communities in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey
and Pennsylvania, before settling on Pennsylvania's
Wright Township and the city of Mountain Top. There it
found an 110,000-sq-ft, newly erected, flexible-use shell
building located in Crestwood Industrial Park, a statedesignated Keystone Opportunity Zone.
"But the driving force was its proximity to our market
area," Mr. Solano said. The building is close to interstate
highways, thus enabling distribution to stretch from
Maine to Virginia.
When it was announced in January 2005, Mountain
Top was described as a $33.9 million project. The state of
Pennsylvania put together a financing package totaling
$6.8 million that included $5.8 million in bank financing,
a $465,000 opportunity grant and $500,000 in job training assistance. Two large ceremonial checks, presented to
company president Jairo Senise at the closing, are mounted on an office wall at the plant, visible reminders of the
commitments made by the state and the company.
A year later, the under-roof capacity of 110,000 sq ft
has grown to 135,000 sq ft. Mission added a 25,000-sqft refrigerated warehouse that went into use in February
2006. The building can be expanded by another 15,000
sq ft to totally build-out the site. With six lines now, plans
call for a total of seven press lines, one die-cut line, four
corn lines and one fried chip line, in the near future.
Eberhard Lobeck, Mission Foods' vice-president of engineering, managed the initial layouts for Mountain Top
and advised on its commissioning. When Mr. Lobeck retired in November, his role in the project was assumed by
Alfredo Blanco, who was named to replace him. Project

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