General Mills is building a $54 million pilot plant in Golden Valley, adding much-needed space to put new products on shelves faster.
The investment is the biggest yet at the 65-year-old James Ford Bell Technical Center and comes as General Mills and other big food companies struggle to find a winning formula for growth.
“It’s a critical time to make sure we’re firing on all innovation cylinders and having a line of sight to where consumers are going,” said Lanette Shaffer Werner, chief innovation, technology and quality officer at General Mills.
The 30,000-square-foot, two-story addition adds to an increasingly cramped technical center that houses about 1,000 employees just north of the company’s main headquarters.
“As we think about portfolio shaping and organic growth, we have to have the space to do that kind of work,” Shaffer Werner said. “We need more agile, flexible space for new ingredients and processes.”
A rendering of General Mills' $54 million pilot plant in Golden Valley that adds space to the 65-year-old James Ford Bell Technical Center. (General Mills)
The investment comes in the face of the company’s ongoing [“transformation initiative”](https://www.startribune.com/general-mills-transformation-initiative-layoffs-severance-charge/601362851) that is shedding jobs in order to pay for new product development and other sales-boosting initiatives.
“We see management’s actions as prudent and likely to help restore growth,” Morningstar analyst Kris Inton wrote earlier this year.
But without space to innovate, those long-term growth efforts would fall flat.