Agrana Fruit formally opens Lysander plant

LYSANDER — Agrana Fruit US, Inc. on Thursday formally opened its fourth U.S. fruit-preparation plant at 8864 Sixty Road in Lysander in northwest Onondaga County.

The firm in March 2013 had announced plans to invest more than $50 million to build the facility and create about 120 jobs.

In addition to Lysander, Agrana also operates fruit-processing facilities in Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas.

Agrana chose a 29-acre site in Lysander for its latest plant for production and distribution because of its close proximity to the Northeast corridor of the U.S. and Canada, which it views as a “growing hub” for dairy manufacturers, the firm said in a news release.

The company’s 107,000-square-foot plant will provide fruit preparations in support of growth in the yogurt industry. The new plant will start production with 60 employees, and the firm expects the figure to grow “quickly,” according to a news release.

Increased consumer demand for Greek yogurt has generated change and growth in the yogurt industry, Agrana said.

The company’s love for fruit begins with its “global sourcing,” Robert Prendes, president and CEO of Agrana Fruit U.S., said in his remarks during the opening event.

“We have seven, eight different factories around that do what we call first transformation work, which is going into the field, bringing fruits to our factories, and cleaning them, freezing them, and then sending them to a second transformation,” Prendes said.

He referred to the Lysander operation as a “second-transformation facility.”

New York provided Agrana with a $600,000 grant from Empire State Development and $2 million in Excelsior tax credits, according to the New York governor’s office.

Between 2005 and 2011, the amount of milk used to make yogurt in New York increased from 158 million pounds to about 1.2 billion pounds, Kenneth Adams, president and CEO of Empire State Development, said in his remarks during Agrana’s event today.

Agrana Fruit US, headquartered near Cleveland, Ohio, is part of Vienna, Austria–based Agrana Group, which produces sugar, starch, fruit preparation, juice concentrate, and ethanol.

Agrana Group generates annual revenue of $4 billion and employs about 8,000 people at 56 sites in 26 countries around the world.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com