Sweet Street Desserts, Inc., a Reading, Pa.-based leader in gourmet frozen desserts such as pies, big cakes, cheesecakes, dessert bars, scones , cookies and petit fours, announced plans to establish a new manufacturing facility in Greenville, S.C. The investment is expected to generate at least 80 new jobs over the next several years.

“We are pleased to move forward with plans to locate our new facility in South Carolina, allowing us to expand production capacity and more easily and efficiently reach our growing customer base in markets across North and South America,” says Sandy Solmon, founder and CEO. “The state of South Carolina and local community offered us a wonderful business environment and bent over backwards to assist us. Greenville County provided us with an excellent facility that is ideally suited to our needs, and we are excited to begin this new chapter in our organization’s history.”

Sweet Street purchased the 120,000-square-foot former Sara Lee building at 1916 Piedmont Highway in Greenville County, and will be outfitting it with new machinery and equipment. The company expects to begin manufacturing operations by summer 2014.

“As the leader in the gourmet dessert industry, we set the standard for the industry, and we envision that this new facility will play an important role in our pursuit of that mission,” says Solmon. “Our goal is to maintain our leadership, while growing internationally. We believe that our new base in Greenville will support this continued expansion, now at 60 countries and counting.”