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Where does our food come from? Often from a processing plant here in Ohio
Monday, January 22, 2007
The path food takes from the farm to your fork frequently goes through a processing plant — and you might be surprised at how much of that processing happens here in Ohio.
Bob Evans, for example, slaughters 1,000 to 1,200 hogs each week at its sausage plant in Xenia, said Earl Beery, the Columbus-based restaurant chain's senior vice president of operations.
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That plant and another in Springfield, which makes soups and gravies for restaurants and supermarkets, together process 40 million to 50 million pounds of food a year.
Dannon operates the world's largest yogurt plant, which employs more than 400 people, in the Auglaize County village of Minster, about an hour's drive north of Dayton.
Ohio had 51,000 people employed in food manufacturing in 2005, ranking it eighth after California, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina, according to a Census Bureau survey. Those Ohio food manufacturing workers took home $1.87 billion in pay in 2005.
Ohio ranks first in Swiss cheese production, and is home to the largest maker of Swiss cheese (Brewster Dairy in Stark County); the world's largest supplier of pork rinds and cracklins (Rudolph Food in Lima); the world's largest soup factory (Campbell's in Napoleon); and the world's largest ketchup plant (Heinz in Fremont).
Ohio also ranks first nationwide in frozen specialty foods; second in pet foods, ketchup, dressings and egg production, and third in tomato production, said Valente Alvarez, director of Ohio State University's Food Industries Center.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457 or
bsutherly@DaytonDailyNews.com.
