The Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle reported that Rochester retailer Wegmans Food Markets opened a $36 million Culinary Innovation Center expansion at its meat shipping and receiving facility in Chili, N.Y. The 53,000-square-foot operation features an R&D test kitchen, central kitchen, meat processing area and main plant. Employees in some areas will concentrate on retail and/or bulk sizes of soups, sauces and raw materials used for Wegman’s fresh take-out foods. Still other workers will be in the refrigerated plant to assemble fresh entrees, such as Chicken Cordon Bleu, the newspaper said. The new operation will significantly increase Wegmans’ fresh prepared food capacity, the company said. The new central kitchen, for example, features five 200-gallon kettles (instead of five 100-gallon units) to process soups, sauces, mashed potatoes and more. The newspaper also noted that Wegmans’ new operation has a nitrogen freezer to prepare quick-frozen items.