The Campbell's Company plant in Richmond, Utah was dubbed “Project Finn,” named after the loveable fish that makes Goldfish crackers so memorable.
Image courtesy of The Campbell's Company
Every food and beverage manufacturing facility has a soul. Sometimes it’s a reflection of a company’s character or a reflection of the people who work there and the culture that’s been created. Figuring out what exactly it is that defines a facility can sometimes be a challenge, but not in the case of the Richmond, Utah facility for The Campbell’s Company. How it has been able to improve throughput while saving money and still give back to the community shows how Campbell’s values were embedded in the design from the very start.
Rising demand for Goldfish in the western portion of the country, especially California and Texas, led to the upgrade of the Utah facility.Image courtesy of The Campbell's CompanyThe Richmond, Utah bakery produces Pepperidge Farm’s iconic Goldfish crackers as well as cookies. The 400,000-sq-ft facility has been a part of northern Utah’s Cache Valley since 1974 and employs approximately 450 people. Goldfish are produced at other Campbell’s locations in the Midwest and eastern part of the country. But with consumption of Goldfish on the rise in the western portion of the country, especially California and Texas, the strategic decision was made to upgrade the Utah facility.
Approximately $160 million was invested to remodel portions of the facility, and add a new line and a new warehouse that would total 107,382 sq ft of new space. Additionally, an onsite flour mill that’s separately owned and operated was also built. The new line adds an extra 50% of production capability to the facility, which means it can produce more than 5 million Goldfish per hour, or 1,500 Goldfish every second. The project was dubbed “Project Finn,” named after the loveable smiling fish that makes the crackers so memorable.
Bringing groups together
Most people are able to identify Campbell’s soup, but the company is much more than just soup. In addition to Campbell’s soup varieties, Pacific Foods, Pace, Prego, Rao's, Swanson's broth, and V8 are included in the Meals and Beverages portfolio of The Campbell's Company. On the snack side, Cape Cod, Kettle Brand, Lance, Late July, Snack Factory, and Snyder’s of Hanover are among the brands joining Goldfish, which is a $1 billion brand and the largest in the company’s portfolio.
The new line adds an extra 50% of production capability to the facility, which means it can produce more than 5 million Goldfish per hour.As these brands became part of Campbell’s throughout the years, so did their way of doing things. One of the reasons for the rebrand from Campbell’s Soup Company to The Campbell’s Company was to reflect the company's broad portfolio and help create a unified identity. This strategy was also adopted for Project Finn.
“There were different ways the company had approached operational readiness or a project startup in the past,” says Jason Roethig, Senior Director of Engineering Services and Project Execution for The Campbell’s Company. “This project gave us the opportunity to take the best from these different ways—and define a new project delivery process for The Campbell’s Company. This new cross functional operational readiness process helped us achieve a vertical startup by ensuring optimal internal and external process operations. It enabled proper startup procedures, training, maintenance, vendor interactions with new operators and a world class contractor safety program. In addition, postmortem lessons learned are now more effective to keep improving.”
PROJECT FINN
Location: Richmond, Utah
Owner: The Campbell's Company
AEC Firm: Dennis Group
Type: Renovation/Addition
Size Added: 107,382 sq ft
Timeline: Summer 2023-Winter 2024
People from across the company with specialized skills were brought in to share their expertise and work alongside the plant team in Richmond. Integral to the project was the Owner’s Representative, who previously worked at The Campbell’s Company, and interfaced with plant, engineering, and contractor teams. This role was the contact for all trades and coordinated resources into a single focus.
Combining production and community gains
Getting a project team moving forward in a single direction is one thing, but what about the community? Having been a part of the area for so long—and voted Best of Northern Utah Top Employers three years running—The Campbell’s Company sought to increase what it could do for the community even more. As it turns out, the community had one of its own involved on the project, Tony Hernandez, Director of Richmond Site Operations who was a plant engineer during the design and construction.
“Tony grew up here. He's lived here his whole life,” says Roethig. “So, he was a very good asset to the team with that local presence.”
The area surrounding the plant is rural. As such, it didn’t have a municipal water system until the plant came along in the 1970s. A concern with the addition to Project Finn was overwhelming that system with added water volume. One of the ways the project team was able to avoid that was by installing an adiabatic cooling tower that uses evaporation to pre-cool air before it enters the tower. This drastically cuts down on the amount of water needed for cooling while also cutting down on energy consumption.
“Due to the high growth in the area in Richmond City, they [city representatives] had concerns with us taking that much capacity,” says Hernandez. “So, we changed our design, and did spend more money, but we got them a much friendlier option where we're not sending any water to Richmond City.”
The new line has significant flexibility that allows it to handle a wide range of the 140 product SKUs produced in Richmond, including smaller batch limited-edition or seasonal Goldfish flavors.Image courtesy of The Campbell's Company
Another, perhaps more direct, way that the project has proven beneficial to the community is with the onsite flour mill. “When we looked to build this expansion, one of the things procurement started looking at immediately is ingredient availability,” says Hernandez, “and the flour supply was immediately identified as a risk.”
Hernandez says that two mills were identified as potential suppliers, but both were already at capacity. The procurement team then reached out to its vendor partners about constructing a mill adjacent to the Richmond plant. A partnership between PHM Brands’ Panhandle Milling and Nippn Corporation, called Utah Flour Milling, LLC, built the adjacent mill and connected it to the bakery. This independently owned and operated mill supplies flour directly to the Campbell’s plant, which is only a portion of what it’s capable of producing. It’s a win for the local farmers who supply their wheat to the mill, and a win for the plant that is now able to use locally sourced ingredients for the Goldfish crackers and cookies. Having a mill directly feed into the Richmond plant also drastically cuts down on transportation costs and the associated environmental concerns. It also has the added benefit of improving product quality and consistency for both cookies and Goldfish.
Improving throughput takes a team
The timeline for Project Finn’s development puts it near the tail end of the worst of the covid-related impacts, but the project team still had to deal with labor concerns, both in the plant and during construction, and operations needed to be ongoing since the plant was having a near record year of production. That impacted how the project was approached and designed, which required an experienced firm.
Roethig says that approximately 40% of the project was renovating existing areas of the facility. Walkthroughs were done and checklists created for the installation of barriers and isolating construction areas, as well as adding extra controls, monitoring, and ventilation to prevent contamination, which the project team achieved with 100% success.
“Dennis Group was the firm we used, and all of their experience is in food manufacturing, so they knew the requirements to be able to perform construction in these areas,” says Hernandez. “They were able to help give us good options and ideas on how to mitigate any risks.”
The firm also used its experience to help with layouts and equipment selection. The Campbell’s Company wanted to develop a competitive advantage by teaming up with equipment vendors to improve performance and operational efficiency. Engineering kicked off in September 2022, with scope development, followed by preliminary testing, and proof of concept testing in the OEM facilities. By the time it was ready for equipment installation, the team had set a new standard for the next generation of technology that will be retrofitted on some existing lines and used on all future lines.
Each individual bagging machine outputs 25% greater capacity than existing lines, but the system as a whole is capable of 75% more throughput than existing cracker packaging lines. In addition to being the fastest baggers in the entire network, the new line improves quality and flexibility. The team applied best practices from Campbell's Meals and Beverage Division to streamline the recipe management system, simplifying the process and controlling sequencing of operations across batches for greater consistency and improved quality.Different colored lights provide real-time signals that allow operators to act quickly.Image courtesy of The Campbell's Company
“This project was one of the first projects on the snack side that implemented our recipe management system that centrally managed and organized our batching process,” says Mark O’Brien, the controls engineer for Project Finn. “We're able to control ingredient deliveries and process parameters to maximize our efficiency and reduce our waste by utilizing batch reporting to help drive those improvements.”
Changeover time was also significantly reduced on the new line, from four hours to one. This adds significant flexibility to the new line, allowing it to handle a wide range of the 140 product SKUs produced in Richmond, including smaller batch limited-edition or seasonal Goldfish flavors.
Another significant improvement to the equipment was the addition of equipment lighting to enhance operator functionality and safety. Different colored lights provide real-time signals that allow operators to act quickly, reducing the time spent troubleshooting and managing the equipment. As a result, operator tasks were simplified, and workspace management improved, allowing them to oversee a larger area more efficiently. For example, on the new lines, operators can manage 35% more bagger equipment than on the traditional lines. Additionally, predictive maintenance and root cause analysis became easier, leading to higher uptime and overall increased efficiency.
The collaborative approach taken by The Campbell’s Company on Project Finn has had many positives for the company, the community, and consumers. It’s a reflection of the company’s goal to put smiles on people’s faces, not just the faces of the products it makes.
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Rising demand for Goldfish in the western portion of the country, especially California and Texas, led to the upgrade of the Utah facility.Image courtesy of The Campbell's Company
The new line adds an extra 50% of production capability to the facility, which means it can produce more than 5 million Goldfish per hour.
