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Mrs. Gerry’s Kitchen in Albert Lea is expanding within its current footprint to make way for the addition of the manufacturing of new products from the acquisition of a Wisconsin-based food company.

Once the buildout within the plant is complete, the company will manufacture not only its classic offerings of refrigerated salads and heat-and-eat sides, but it will also make dips, dip platters and protein salads, such as chicken salad, buffalo chicken dip, taco dip platters and others, all in Albert Lea, said Shaun Young, vice president of operations and supply chain with the company.

For the first time in its history, the company will run products containing meat, requiring it to become USDA-regulated, he said.

“Whenever you make an acquisition you have a choice: Do you keep the facility where you just made the acquisition, or do you upgrade the current facility here in Albert Lea and make this place bigger and even better than what it currently is today?” said CEO Kevin Green. “We, along with our private equity owner group, made the decision that we really want to relocate the assets here because of what that can do not just to the employees but also the broader community. People want to be a part of winning organizations. They want their community to be thriving, and we want that investment to be maintained right here in Albert Lea where we feel like we can have a direct correlation to that.”

The new products are presently being made at another facility on an interim basis until they can be moved to the Albert Lea site.

Green said the acquisition of the company, Dawn’s Foods, gets Mrs. Gerry’s more into the entertainment space. Many of the new products will be sold at deli counters or sold as a private label and will allow the company to expand its market reach.

To make way for the new foods, Young said the company is constructing new frozen storage space along with new dry warehouse space, utilizing unfinished space in the plant from a previous expansion. He said the project converts a large area of the plant to processing and packaging to make space for bringing in four packaging lines and multiple processing lines.

Construction started in September and is slated to be complete by March.

They will also build some new offices and a new entrance lobby, as well as finish another office space so they can tear down some other offices to expand their production space.

With the expansion, the company looks to hire 38 new employees, a 10 to 15% increase in its current employee base, Young and Green said. It will start promoting the new jobs, which will mainly be in production with a few in support for maintenance and quality, in January.

Mrs. Gerry’s began in 1973 and was owned by husband and wife team Jerry and Gerry Vogt for 46 years. It started after Jerry, who was delivering through a Schweigert meat truck at the time, expressed a need for someone to make salads to sell on his meat delivery route.

Armed with her family’s recipes, Gerry began what would ultimately grow to a business that is now 214,500 square feet and manufactures 120 different products, producing more than 50 million pounds per year, and distributing coast to coast.

In 2020, Mrs. Gerry’s was purchased by Sequel Holdings LLC in Dallas, Texas, and in 2023, the company celebrated 50 years in operation.