Will you back up what you believe? They used to say, “Put your money where your mouth is.”

Request Foods said it has begun processing and co-packing frozen skillet meal products now that a second, 230,000-sq.-ft. plant, the company's second location in Holland, Mich., is operational.

Pinnacle Foods Group LLC, Mountain Lakes, N.J., said it expects at the end of 2011 to close its Fulton, N.Y., Birds Eye frozen vegetable plant.

Citing cost reduction concerns, dairy giant Dean Foods Co., Dallas, said it plans to close a PET dairy in Florence, S.C., on Oct. 29, 2010.

Contract processing is not a predictable business. Just ask the executives at Request Foods in Holland, Mich.

Some companies’ names are self-explanatory. At first glance, Request Foods appears to be one of them. After all, granting customer requests is exactly what this contract processor aims to do.

The food world is full of unlikely combinations. For example, a few years ago a friend told me about her new odd “combo” obsession. I tried it, and consequently spent more than a handful of evenings eating spoonfuls of peanut butter dipped in vanilla yogurt.