StockPot’s cooking in south Everett

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, April 29, 2007

EVERETT – The soup’s on at StockPot’s new kitchen, which took more than a year and a half and $80 million to build.

Starting this week, all of the company’s soup will be produced at the new Everett facility, which replaces StockPot’s former headquarters and soup-making plant near Maltby. The first production of soup in Everett started last month.

While the decision to move the company wasn’t by choice, its 350 employees are pumped up about settling into the new place, said Ed Carolan, vice president and general manager at StockPot, which is a subsidiary of giant Campbell Soup Co.

“Excitement doesn’t describe it well enough. There’s an energy that comes from moving into a new place that represents great opportunity,” said Carolan, who lives in Mukilteo.

Launched 26 years ago in Redmond, StockPot has become the nation’s top producer of fresh refrigerated soups, growing by leaps and bounds in the process. It produces dozens of soup, gravy and sauce varieties for restaurants, cruise ships, college dining halls and other eateries. Its soups also are sold at self-serve kiosks and in the refrigerated sections of supermarkets.

In 1999, the company moved into a new 100,000-square-foot headquarters along Highway 9 near Maltby. Despite neighbors’ complaints about a French onion soup odor from the plant, which was solved with the installation of an expensive air scrubber, the company planned to stay there.

Then Brightwater came along. When King County chose a nearby property for its new regional sewage treatment plant, StockPot asked for help in relocating. Though the new plant would not have directly affected the company’s “culinary campus,” which is visited by chefs from around the nation, it wasn’t good for StockPot’s image.

The result was a $23.4 million relocation package from King County, which will take over StockPot’s former building. The soup maker broke ground in August 2005 on an 18-acre site near the intersection of Hardeson Road and Merrill Creek Parkway in southwest Everett’s Seaway Center business park.

StockPot’s new home is massive at 220,000 square feet, about the same total size as the Wal-Mart supercenter near Marysville. Everything’s bigger, and the building’s designed to be easily expanded if needed.

In the still-gleaming white research and development kitchen, chef assistant Michael Posner said the staff has about three times the space to develop new flavors as they did in Maltby.

“There’s a lot more walking,” he said. “It’s actually a lot more comfortable, better lighting, more storage. It’s great.”

In an average day, he and other chefs will prepare up to 21 soups a day for taste testing. Robert Green, manager of the research kitchen, said the new plant is more specifically designed for StockPot than the last one.

“This time, they’ve redesigned everything, which will make it easier to be more efficient and consistent from batch to batch of soup,” said Green, who also will enjoy a shorter commute than before as he settles into a new home in Smokey Point.

Carolan, who previously helped to manage Campbell’s main soup brands and the Chunky brand before coming to StockPot in January, said many of the company’s employees will similarly enjoy shortened commutes with the new location. He credited Everett for welcoming the company after it searched the region for a suitable location.

He also assured the company’s new neighbors that the same air scrubber in the Maltby plant has been installed in Everett to prevent soup odors from wafting over the neighborhood.

With the logistical details of the transition to the new plant largely done and this week’s grand opening of the facility, Carolan said StockPot can concentrate fully again on making unique soups and continuing to increase sales. In its 2006 annual report, Campbell reported business for StockPot’s refrigerated soups continued to grow solidly.

“Some things come along that are an opportunity in disguise,” he said. “This works out very well for us at this stage.”

Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.