Red Gold continues to grow

As part of a long-term goal to enlarge the plant, Red Gold in Geneva completed its warehouse expansion plan, a major investment in the company’s processing facility.
Headquartered in Elwood, Red Gold finished its 250,000 square-foot, $8.5 million expansion project in late July at its Geneva site. The project took nine months to complete.
Tim Ingle, vice president of human resources and corporate strategy, said the company had already invested millions of dollars into the facility since it acquired the property back in 1995 from the former Red Wing, a food label company.
Since then, Red Gold has invested more than $100 million in the Geneva facility.
“The town of Geneva has been a wonderful relationship that we’ve had since Red Gold ownership purchased this building in 1995,” said Ingle. “But with several of the capital investments and expansions over the last 10 or 15 years, in particular, more of the same from the town board, they’ve enjoyed seeing Red Gold grow and being part of the growth.”
Red Gold, which started in 1942 with the Orestes Canning Company, makes products such as canned tomatoes, juices, pasta sauces, salsas and ketchup. Grover C. Hutcherson and his daughter, Fran, grew their company by sending canned tomatoes to soldiers during World War II.
In 1970, Orestes purchased a small tomato company, “Red Gold,” and kept the name. By the 2000s, it partnered with more than 50 Midwestern tomato-farming families and employed more than 1,000 workers.
Storage space and easing the distribution process are among the reasons the warehouse was built, as well as having room to add new machinery to expand on company products.
Red Gold harvests tomatoes once a year from July to October, a 10-week reaping period.
Ingle said the plant needs to have a substantial amount of warehouse space to house all the tomato products during the year. Having the warehouse makes distributing products easier for Red Gold because it eliminates extra travel.
Before Red Gold built the space, the company had satellite storehouses in different areas, like Bluffton.
Adding the warehouse will also enable the plant to invest in equipment, allowing it to start packaging its products diversely, such as pasta sauce in glass jars rather than plastic containers.
The warehouse is part of a long-term pattern of expansion, which also included the addition of five apartment-style buildings seven years ago for migrant workers who are employed during harvest time.
Twenty full-time positions were created from the growth for industrial maintenance personnel, truck drivers, forklift operators and machine workers. This adds to the 300 employees at the Geneva location and the 1,400 total workers in Orestes and Elwood.
With these investments, the Town of Geneva is benefiting from the Red Gold expansion, said Ingle. The company is the town’s largest employer, and because of its location — nestled between Fort Wayne and Portland — “we’re a best kept secret,” said Ingle, adding any more investments the company makes will be focused on the only three manufacturing plants in state rather than in other regions.
Geneva Town Council president Dick Clutter noted that Red Gold is the biggest taxpayer in Geneva and the expansion has helped the town expand economically.
“They’ve helped the town considerably,” said Clutter. “You couldn’t ask for a better employer.”