Frito-Lay Breaks Ground for Topeka Plant Expansion

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Frito-Lay North America (Plano, Texas), a subsidiary of PepsiCo Incorporated (NYSE:PEP) (Purchase, New York), has broken ground for the addition of an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) at the company's snack manufacturing plant in Topeka, Kansas. Dirt work has begun, and construction is expected to commence in July.

The project is one of the major projects kicking off in the Midwest in July. For details of other projects, see June 23, 2010, article - Windfarms, Alternative Fuels Take Midwest to Leading Edge for July Project Starts.

Valued at $53 million, the new automated inventory system will modernize they way products are handled and shipped. The new building will have a high bay-roof that will accommodate the 70-foot height of the AS/RS. Frito-Lay retained the services of the Frisco, Texas, office of design-build firm The Haskell Company (Jacksonville, Florida) for the project, which is scheduled for completion late this year or early next year.

In addition to the new automated storage and retrieval system in Topeka, Frito-Lay is also spending $15 million to add a 60,000-pound-per-hour biomass boiler supplied by Alpha Boilers Incorporated (Miami, Florida) to reduce the plant's natural gas consumption. Burns & McDonnell (Kansas City, Missouri) is providing engineering services.

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