Austin-based Bean Brand Foods, the maker of Beanitos bean chips, says it is looking for a 75,000 square foot facility in Central Texas to combine its manufacturing, warehousing, and administrative facilities. The locally based company says it will seek to hire 150 people towards the end of 2011.
Bean Brand Foods moved its manufacturing facility from Austin to San Bernardino, California in late 2010. But rising shipment costs and a desire to keep the plant closer to its Austin headquarters prompted the company to reverse course.
"When you start looking at it from an economic standpoint it makes total sense," Bean Brand Foods CEO Doug Foreman told KUT News. "And the other thing is, we really want to be in Austin."
Foreman says shipping raw materials to California has become more expensive with rising oil prices. Seasoning comes from Wisconsin, for example, and its beans come from Colorado. Sending cases of Beanitos out to retailers is also more expensive from the West Coast than it would be from Central Texas.
"We're projecting next year that we would be spending about $350,000 to $400,000 just on getting it back to Austin," Foreman said. "That's at oil prices from about six weeks ago. It's only going to get worse."
Foreman says the types of jobs they would be creating would include manufacturing, warehousing, customer support, sales support and marketing positions. He says most of those hires would occur near the near the end of the year.
