Kerry has opened an upgraded and renovated coating production facility in Rome, Georgia. As one of North America’s most innovative facilities of its kind, the newly expanded Rome site provides significant capacity, advanced capabilities and customized coating solutions to help foodservice and retail customers deliver great tasting products that win in the coated poultry, seafood, appetizer and alternative meat categories.

A total of $125 million has been invested to update the 360,000-square-foot manufacturing facility—Kerry’s largest capital investment to date. Offering the highest standards of food safety and quality systems, the facility provides state-of-the-art production capacity across Japanese breadcrumb (panko-style), cracker meal and breader blends. The new Japanese breadcrumb and cracker meal production lines are now up and running and the blending lines will be complete later this year.

Commenting on the upgraded facility, Daryl Adel, Meat End Use Market Executive, said: “Our investment in this best-in-class production facility underscores Kerry’s commitment to delivering high-demand coatings to meet our customers’ current and emerging needs. Used in combination with our unrivalled taste and nutrition technologies and expertise, our coatings portfolio can deliver on virtually any product need. We’re excited to be at the forefront of coatings technologies and capacity and look forward to supporting our customers’ growth through our flagship facility in Rome, and our four other coatings productions facilities in North America.”

In addition, Kerry’s sustainability commitment is making an important environmental difference in the expanded facility. The new operation offers a reduced carbon footprint, utilizing 100% renewable electricity and will feature zero waste to landfill by the end of 2021. “Kerry has made sustainability a cornerstone of our Rome, Georgia expansion, and our customers and their consumers can be assured of our commitment to creating products that are meaningfully better for people and the planet,” added Adel.

To assist customers in taking full advantage of the added capabilities and capacity, Kerry is releasing an easy-to-use, online custom-coating creator tool that allows food innovators to explore exciting product possibilities that utilize the company’s extensive array of coating, flavor and taste solutions. The tool allows customers to experiment and create crispy, crunchy and “craveable” new product possibilities in just a few clicks. Users select from a variety of texture, color and flavor profiles to create their own leading-edge coated product solution designed to serve an ever-changing food marketplace.

“The coating creator helps showcase Kerry’s ability to customize coatings through our unsurpassed portfolio of taste and nutrition technologies to achieve any product vision for our customers. What sets Kerry apart from our competitors is our unique ability to embed Kerry’s flavor, seasoning, smoke and grill, and consumer-friendly preservation into a complete coating solution that achieves nutritional objectives while delivering on key consumer drivers of liking,” Adel concluded.

Kerry’s extensive North America meat product manufacturing end-use market capabilities comprise 22 facilities, including coatings (5), seasonings (2), taste & flavor (5), smoke & grill (5), food protection & preservation (3) and plant protein (2).

About Kerry Taste & Nutrition  

Kerry is the world’s leading taste and nutrition partner for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. We innovate with our customers to create great-tasting products, with improved nutrition and functionality, while ensuring a better impact for the planet. Our leading and proprietary consumer insights, global RD&A team of 1,000+ food scientists and local manufacturing footprint in 31 countries enable us to co-create with our customers across over 150 countries. At Kerry, we are driven to be our customers’ most valued partner, creating a world of sustainable nutrition, and will reach over two billion consumers with sustainable nutrition solutions by 2030.