Town Asks State for Help With Industrial Road

The Town of Clayton and Johnston County are joining together to ask the NC Dept. of Transportation (DOT) to make $300,000 in improvements to Pony Farm Road in East Clayton in support of the successful effort to lure commercial baker Northeast Foods to build a new state-of-the-art operation there.

The road improvements are part of the infrastructure needed for the $25.4 million commercial bakery that's expected to bring 84 high-paying jobs to the area.

"This is a good example of how DOT works with local municipalities to further economic development," said Town Manager Steve Biggs. "DOT's assistance in jobs-producing efforts such as this is extremely valuable."

The town is also seeking a $700,000 Community Development Block grant to help with the infrastructure costs. Town officials have committed $233,333 in local funds to the projct.

Jobs at the new baking complex, to be known as Automatic Rolls of North Carolina, are expected to average nearly $42,000 a year in salary, which is much more than the Johnston County average of $31,408. Construction is expected to begin this summer.

Northeast Foods bakes hamburger buns for McDonalds. The new 80,000-sq.ft facility, which should be operational in about a year, will serve two Golden State Foods distribution centers, one in nearby Garner and another in Lexington, SC. The company is the largest supplier of buns for McDonald's in the United States.

BusinessWeek magazine's recent ranking of Clayton in the top 10 of the best towns in the nation for affordability and quality of schools made the town attractive, company officials said, along with the nearby Interstate highways.

The commercial baker is just the town's latest economic development success. A few weeks ago, the town succeeded in convincing drug-maker Talecris Biotherapeutics to locate a $269 million expansion here and last year lured multi-national bakery equipment manufacturer Turkington to relocate its North American operations to Clayton and equipment-maker Caterpillar to build a new Product Development Center here.