Construction crews have broken ground on a fully automated bottling facility at the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator that will transform the way the incubator’s tenants package their oils, salad dressings, condiments, drinks and other edible products.
The facility—located in a renovated 4,000-square-foot warehouse on the southeast side of the LSU campus near the AgCenter—will automate the packaging and bottling process for incubator tenants, who currently have to package their products by hand.
“So many of our tenants really need this because they’re trying to scale up and they can’t get their product out fast enough,” says incubator director Gaye Sandoz, who estimates the new equipment will speed up the amount of time it takes to fill bottles from 10 bottles per minute to about 80.
Though work on the facility began just two weeks ago, it is already generating interest from outside companies—local food entrepreneurs from around the state, who are looking for a bottling or packaging facility. Those companies will be able to utilize the equipment as well, which will be a way of helping to sustain and grow the increasingly popular incubator.
“It will be a very convenient facility with parking and a loading dock, which is something we don’t have now,” she says.
A $2.5 million federal grant the incubator received from the Office of Community Development is covering the cost of the new automated equipment, while a $250,000 Louisiana Economic Development grant is funding new coolers and freezers for the facility.
The bottling facility is expected to be completed in April or May. Local tenants say it can’t come soon enough. Hanley’s Salad Dressing is competing in January on CNBC’s Billion Dollar Buyer reality show.
If hospitality mogul host Tilman Fertitta picks the local salad dressing company to put in his restaurants and hotels, owner Richard Hanley says he’ll need the expanded bottling facility to help fill the orders.
—Stephanie Riegel
