Analysis of U.S. Food and Beverage Expenditures for 2008

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--A review of planned, canceled and completed projects from Industrial Info's project database reveals that food and beverage companies planned to pour over $9 billion into building new manufacturing plants and expanding existing facilities in the U.S. in 2008. Over the course of the year, 64 projects worth $1.7 billion were placed on hold or simply canceled. After the project fallout, 461 major capital and maintenance projects started construction at the beginning of the year and are now completed or still ongoing. Each project has a minimum total investment value of $500,000, going up to $220 million. Industrial Info identified 373 capital projects worth $7.4 billion and 88 scheduled maintenance shutdowns with a combined value of $100 million.

Project activity based on investment value shows that a majority of capital outlays fell in the $1 million to $10 million range, with a cumulative count of $984 million. There were 202 such projects involving upgrades, rebuilds, production-line additions and new facilities. There were 126 projects that fell in the range of $10 million to $50 million, including the addition of a whey-processing facility in Idaho, a few bottling plant expansions and several new distribution centers. In the $50 million to $100 million range, 26 projects tallied up to $1.97 billion. Dr Pepper Snapple Group Incorporated's (NYSE:DPS) (Plano, Texas) plans for a new bottling facility in California was among the handful of projects above the $100 million mark and add up to $1.1 billion.

Expenditures related to the beverage segment were roughly $690 million. Much of the project activity went toward expansions of existing facilities.

Facilities in the Great Lakes and Midwest regions received the most expenditure, with $1.65 billion and $1.53 billion, respectively. Two of the largest projects in the regions were a $100 million pet food plant in Kansas and a $66.5 million snack food plant in Ohio. The Northeast recorded $1.12 billion, while expenditures for the Southwest and Southeast regions trailed with $819 million and $809 million, respectively.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.