Kettle Chips
A worker at Kettle Foods' facility in Salem, where it makes potato chips and other snacks.
(Kettle Foods)
Diamond Foods is building a research and development arm around Kettle Foods, the Salem-based natural potato chip maker it acquired in 2010.
The California parent company announced Monday it is starting construction on a 7,000-square-foot "innovation center" at Kettle Foods' manufacturing plant in Salem.
The combined test kitchen, prototyping and focus grouping facility would serve not only Kettle, but Diamond's other brands, including Diamond of California nuts, Emerald Nuts and Pop Secret popcorn.
Holly Mensch, hired last year as Diamond's vice president for innovation, said the company chose Oregon for its R&D work because Kettle was already a leader within its brands for creating new products. Proximity to the Portland food scene and agriculture the Willamette Valley didn't hurt, either, she said.
"Portland itself, and the surrounding area, is so well known in the U.S. as being a culinary mecca and pushing culinary trends," she said. "There's a lot of inspiration from just going to a grocery store or walking through a farmer's market."
A rendering of the "innovation center" Diamond Foods is building in Salem, where its Kettle Foods unit makes potato chips.
The announcement also seems to help cement Kettle's future under the Diamond Foods umbrella. A United Kingdom industry publication, The Grocer, suggested earlier this year that Diamond might sell the Kettle brand to help its recovery from an accounting fraud scandal in which it paid a $5 million settlement.
Diamond told The Oregonian at the time that the report "couldn't be further from the truth right now," and the investment in the Salem facility seems to suggest it has no plans to part with the Kettle in the U.S., at least.
Mensch, who most recently worked as a vice president for marketing and innovation at McNeil Nutritionals, the maker of the sweetener Splenda, said she would oversee a team at the center that combines product development, packaging and marketing, putting the one group in charge of creating and launching new products.
It would start with 18 employees, but the facility under construction is designed to accommodate future growth, she said.
"This is a company that is just really committed to innovation," she said. "And they're investing in it, which is not happening in the food industry at this point."
The center is expected to open next year.
-- Elliot Njus