ConAgra Foods Opens Sales Office in Hacienda

By George Walsh, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

8,500 Square Foot Facility Will Serve ConAgra's Northern California Customers

ConAgra Foods, one of North America's largest food companies serving consumer grocery as well as restaurant and food service establishments has signed a lease for a 8,500 square foot facility at 5934 Gibraltar Drive. The new facility will house the Tri-Valley area sales force for the company's packaged foods segment, which includes shelf-stable, frozen, and refrigerated foods packaged for sales to retail and food service customers. Approximately 40 employees will be working at the site, which will continue to hire staff in the coming two to three months.

With $27 billion in sales, ConAgra Foods is one of the largest brand and food service providers in North America. The company's headquarters is located in Omaha, Nebraska and, as a testament to ConAgra's success, the company recently announced its 28th consecutive year of dividend increases for its shareholders.

The primary reason for opening the Hacienda facility was to better serve ConAgra's customers in the area. "Safeway, which is one of our major customers, recently moved their headquarters to Pleasanton," says Kay Carpenter, Director of Corporate Communications for ConAgra Foods. "We have relocated part of our sales team to be close to them, as well as to other customers." In addition to having its corporate headquarters in Pleasanton, Safeway also has a regional office in Hacienda at 4410 Rosewood Drive.

"Since Safeway's been around there's been some sort of representation from ConAgra," says Derek Delamater, corporate customer director for the Grocery Foods group. "We've always been involved with them."

ConAgra Foods grocery, refrigerated, frozen, and dairy foods groups are all going to be under one umbrella at the Hacienda office. "Primarily we're here to support and grow the businesses of ConAgra and Safeway together," says Delamater. "As the manufacturer, we supply them with products. We set up merchandising and promotion for the products that we supply to our customers."

ConAgra Foods produces more than 35 household brands that include ACT II, Armour, Banquet, Blue Bonnet, Brown 'N Serve, Bumble Bee, Butterball, Chef Boyardee, Clover Leaf, Cook's, Country Pride, County Line, DAVID, Decker, Eckrich, Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, Hunt's Tomatoes, Hunt's Sauces, Hunt's Snack Pack, Kid Cuisine, La Choy, Libby's, Longmont, Louis Kemp, Marie Callender's, Orville Redenbacher's, PAM, Parkay, Peter Pan, Slim Jim, Swiss Miss, Van Camp's, Wesson, Wolfgang Puck, and many others. The company employs more than 90,000 people, and has more than 200 operating groups and plants around the globe.

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