The Food Specialization Center: Improving Cumberland County’s Tomorrow

The Authority has always made it a priority to encourage innovation as it strives toward its goal of “improving your tomorrow.” Continuing with this commitment is the new 32,000 square-foot Food Specialization Center (FSC), located within Bridgeton’s Food Manufacturing Hub in the Florida Avenue Industrial Park. It will provide developing companies with a full component of incubation space and business services to prepare them for their future independence and growth. Working with the U.S. Economic Development Administration (USEDA), a longstanding partner with The Authority, the USEDA helped to contribute to the project’s development.

The FSC features two Tenant Food Production Spaces, 7,100 square-feet each, 14,360 total. The Tenant Food Production Spaces can be configured for hot, dry, wet, clean (HEPA), and/or cold process spaces and are able to be configured to meet each tenant’s requirements. The FSC includes 3,300 square-feet of storage—shared or tenant-specific dry, refrigerated, or frozen rooms. The FSC also has a 4,981 square-foot, 26 feet-deep Loading Dock which features up to nine dock positions, and the ability to create private dock spaces for individual tenants. The site also includes 1,645 square-feet of Shared Service Support Spaces and 3,495 square-feet of Shared Office Spaces.

Several tenants set to occupy the recently constructed facility, including the first tenant, Chank’s Pizza Cones. It is expected that up to 113 new positions will be created over the life of the project, creating a $13.86M total economic impact to the county.

“The Food Specialization Center was developed to attract and retain food processing businesses to the County.” said The Authority President/CEO, Gerard Velazquez, III. “The Authority’s very progressive decision to combine public and private financing to bring this project to fruition enforces its role as the economic and redevelopment arm of the County.

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