Flower Foods Production Ready To Roll

Residents of Fort Smith will be happy to know that bread production at Fort Smith Baking Co. in downtown Fort Smith will begin next week. Mary Krier, vice president of communications for Thomasville, Ga.-based Flowers Foods said the company’s supplementary bakery will begin making premium full-loaf Nature’s Own breads on Monday.  

The company currently has 44 permanent employees and 27 contract employees working on one production line, according to Krier. Fort Smith Baking’s current focus is on producing Flowers Foods’ new product, full-loaf Nature’s Own bread, which has been in strong demand since it’s debut in early 2007.

For Flowers Foods, the new demand meant finding a new facility at which to boost production. The company went back to a familiar place on South Sixth Street in downtown Fort Smith where Flowers Foods once made frozen boxed bread. This production stopped in December 2006 and left 75 people without a job. Until then, the bakery had operated out of the Sixth Street location since 1921, when it was built by B.H. Shipley Sr. and his brother W.G. Shipley. The Shipley’s ran the company until it was purchased by publicly traded Flowers Foods in 1996.  

The new production line will produce fresh bread that Krier says will be available in Fort Smith grocery stores as early as May 16. Flowers Foods currently has 37 bakeries in the United States producing under brand names such as Nature’s Own, Cobblestone Mill, and Blue Bird as well as regional franchised brands like Bunny and Sunbeam. The company experienced an 8 percent growth in sales last year at $2.04 billion and their net income increased to $94.6 million (16 percent). Flowers Foods operates two additional Arkansas facilities in Texarkana and Batesville.