Greencore USA is a leading international convenience foods company and is one of nearly 200 companies that is proud to call Quonset Business Park its home. In fact, we recently completed construction on our new greenfield fresh prepared food facility in Rhode Island - a facility which our clients have claimed is the best fresh prepared food facility in North America.
The start of operations is significant for a variety of reasons. Greencore's Quonset facility will be Greencore's northeast hub, producing approximately six million units per week and supplying more than twenty states - 15% - of the U.S. population with products which have on average a 2 days shelf life. In phase 1, this is a 107,000 s/f facility with the potential to expand to 150,000 s/f and is a key example of our 'long term, smart, green growth' commitment. Today, we are considered global leaders in safe, sustainable food production, which will also be the case at Quonset.
The state-of-the-art facility will also use the latest technology and will introduce approximately 400 new jobs to Rhode Islanders, from entry-level food production and delivery to quality control and management. At peak, this new plant will employ more hundreds more with a 50,000 s/f expansion, we hope, not too far down the road.
The start of operations in April is even more impressive considering that it took 11 months from breaking ground to the start of operations for this state of the art facility. That turnaround is a testament to the expertise and superior customer service that we received from managing director, Steven King, and the Quonset Development Corporation's staff. Working collaboratively with them, they were able to fast track the project while meeting Greencore, the park and state requirements.
Greencore chose to come to Quonset for a variety of reasons. Centrally located between both Boston and New York, Rhode Island presented an ideal location for us. Quonset offered easy access to Rte. 4 and I-95, which meant our products could get to market quickly and efficiently. The Business Park itself had modernized infrastructure, was meticulously maintained, and offered attractive amenities for our workers to enjoy. And we were also enthused with the QDC's incentives which reward longer term leases and job creation based on payrolls.
The most critical component to our decision was the expedited development timeline offered by Quonset Business Park. Quonset's Site Readiness program and their uniform development guidelines gave us confidence about the process ahead. Having already worked with various state agencies such as the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) to complete all the permitting and engineering needed as part of our "due diligence," we felt that Quonset offered the quickest timeline from a lease signing to the start of
construction. In fact, they estimated that it would happen in less than 90 days.
True to their word, Quonset delivered. After signing our lease in March 2014, shovels were in the ground before the end of May and less than a year later we were joined by governor Raimondo and the Irish Minister for Agriculture and Food celebrating the grand opening of this new facility. It's no wonder why Quonset Business Park is seen as leading driver of Rhode Island's economy.
Greencore has already invested more than $40 million in our new facility at Quonset and we could not be more grateful to have chosen to join the nearly 200 companies and more than 10,000 workers that call Quonset home. We look forward to doing the same for decades to come.
As our CEO, Liam McClennon recently quipped, "This is the first new factory build for Greencore in almost 25 years, and we are committed to developing one of the best sandwich manufacturing plants in the world here in Rhode Island."
Rene Ouimet is vice president of VP strategy & business transformation and U.S. information technology with Greencore, Quonset, R.I.