Amy's Kitchen postpones East Coast expansion

Petaluma organic frozen-food producer Amy's Kitchen will postpone the opening of a $63 million East Coast production facility and will reconfigure its plants in Santa Rosa and Oregon to meet increased demand in the meantime.

Delays in retrofitting the new plant, a 125,000-square-foot former Sara Lee facility in Greenville, S.C., will put off the plant's opening by "a few years," Amy's Kitchen announced Monday.

The facility, originally slated to open this year or early next year, was to employ 700 people over six years.

But the retrofit was "complex" and required another year of work, the company said in a statement.

In the meantime, Amy's Kitchen plans to retool existing West Coast plants — including its 110,000-square-foot facility in southwest Santa Rosa — to meet production demands, Mark Rudolph, chief financial officer, said in a statement.

Rudolph was unavailable Tuesday to offer further details.

Amy's Kitchen was started in 1988 by Andy and Rachel Berliner. It employs 1,500 people at its West Coast plants and was on pace earlier this year to exceed $300 million in sales. About 60 percent of sales are on the East Coast.