Home >

Infrastructure Work for Bakery Coming Along

Work is expected to begin before the end of the year on a project to widen Pony Farm Road in East Clayton and construct an industrial access road to the new $25.4 million commercial bakery being built by Northeast Foods.

Contracts for both roads were awarded a few days ago to local builders--and both are coming in under budget.

The R.D. Braswell Construction Company of Smithfield was awarded a $70,000 contract for the widening of Pony Farm Road, and the J.M. Daniels Construction Company of Clayton was awarded a $495,787 contract to build the access road, which includes water and sewer lines. The road will be known as Harvest Mill Lane.

"This is another step in the process of bringing more jobs and economic development to Clayton," Mayor Jody McLeod said.

The work is part of the infrastructure needed for the state-of-the-art baking complex, to be known as Automatic Rolls of North Carolina, that's expected to bring 84 high-paying jobs to the area--jobs expected to average nearly $42,000 a year in salary, which is much more than the Johnston County average of $31,408.

The town will use a recently awarded $700,000 Community Development Block Grant from the NC Department of Commerce to help with infrastructure costs.

Northeast Foods bakes hamburger buns for McDonalds. The new 80,000-sq.ft facility here, which should be operational next 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. In addition to the huge Talecris expansion presently under construction, town officials 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.