Parker Products breaks ground on new Fort Worth plant

Facility will triple company’s production capacity, accommodate future growth.

Texas-based Parker Products broke ground on a new facility in December 2016. Private equity firm Riverside Co. will acquire the inclusions and specialty ingredients manufacturer. Photo courtesy of Parker Products.

Parker Products, a Fort Worth-based supplier of inclusions and other specialty ingredients for the baking, beverage, confectionery, dairy, ready-to-eat and snack industries, on Monday broke ground on a new 90,000-sq.-ft. facility.

Parker will move all of its operations to the new location once construction is completed, slated for early 2018. The new facility will triple the company’s total production capacity and serve as the hub of Parker’s kill-step validation and food safety initiatives.

According to Fort Worth Business, Parker Products has committed to invest $17.5 million in real and business personal property by the end of 2017. The company would retain 100 full-time employees and create 30 new full-time jobs as part of the consolidation. Development officials proposed a 10-year, 50-percent tax abatement on real and business personal property, valued at $639,000, the publication reported.

“Our current plant was built in the 1950s, so there were multiple drivers behind building a new facility,” says Greg Hodder, president. “Primarily, the additional space will accommodate anticipated future growth.”

The food ingredient and flavor systems company has been located in Fort Worth since it was founded in 1926 by I.C. Parker, creator of the Drumstick novelty ice cream treat, and its new facility will remain in the city at 3001 Strawn Drive.

“The new facility is a collaboration among Emergent Technologies, Elements of Architecture, the City of Fort Worth, the HWH Group, and Todd Hubbard with NAI Real Estate,” Hodder says. “We appreciate the work all of these organizations have done and will do as the plant is completed over the next year.”

With more than 30 years experience in B-to-B reporting, writing and editing — the bulk of which was dedicated to covering the bakery, confectionery and snack industries — Pacyniak has chronicled changes within the food industry since the early 1980s. A Boston University journalism degree graduate, he worked for a variety of publications before joining BNP Media in 1994 as editor of Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery magazine. In 2001, he took over as editor-in-chief of Candy Industry until 2018.