Inside look at Concord Foods, Massachusetts company that produces iconic pantry staples
A number of familiar supermarket staples are flying down the production lines at Concord Foods in Massachusetts.
Becky Prescott, the company's chief operating officer, says one of Concord Foods' oldest and biggest products is lemon juice which is sold in lemon-shaped squeezable containers.
"This line runs about 150 bottles per minute and we make a lot of lemon juice," Prescott said.
Concord Foods was founded in 1968 by Jeff Neville and has since expanded to a vast variety of products for the food service industry — so much so that the massive footprint of this plant is more than 250,000 square feet and is spread out over 16 acres in the west side of Brockton.
"We make so many things here at Concord Foods. We offer about 3,000 different products to different types of consumers — whether it's a food service customer, industrial for ingredients or our retail business," said Terence Dalton, the company's chief executive officer.
One extremely popular retail item made at Concord Foods is Chiquita Banana Bread Mix, as the company produces 70 packets a minute and 3,000 cases of the product per day.
"We had heard at one point during (the COVID-19 pandemic) in 2020 that Google searches were very high for banana bread," Prescott said. "It was one of the top searches, as a lot of people were staying home and baking in their kitchens and looking for banana bread recipes or products to make it."
It turns out that Concord Foods' Chiquita Banana Bread Mix is the No. 1 brand sold in the United States.