Company buys facility in Indiana, but it’s not known how that will impact rebuilding plans in Burlington
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
As reports in The Business Journal surfaced Nov. 27 that Echo Lake Foods had purchased a 95,000-square-foot facility in Indiana, the question in Burlington remains – just what will the long-time company rebuild in the city, and when?
The Business Journal reported the purchase of the building for $300,000 in Huntington, Ind., according to public documents. However, just what that facility will be used for remains in question.
Echo Lakes Foods General Manager Jerry Warntjes said in an email Monday, “For various reasons it is still premature to comment on (that), early next year we will be making our plans known.”
That comment matched what City Administrator Kevin Lahner has been hearing.
“I’ve heard that as well,” said Lahner Monday. “My understanding is that they’ve got plans that will shortly be ready for building here.”
Questions about when and what and where Echo Lake Foods have been circulating since the company suffered a devastating fire that started on Jan. 30 of this year.
The fire, which was not officially declared out until the following week, destroyed about 60 percent of company’s local production facilities. Warntjes said earlier this year that an agreement had been reached with local officials, but there was an incentive-laden offer from Ohio to move the egg-breaking portion of the Burlington operation there.
Echo Lake faced further difficulties with expanding its operation in Franksville and was slapped with citations totaling $150,000 for 27 safety violations at the Burlington plant by the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration.
Warntjes declined to discuss the OSHA citations issued in July, but said the company has filed a petition for review with the workplace safety agency. A further update on those citations was not available.
Lahner said Monday that, in spite of the purchase of the building in Indiana, there was “no indication that they will not build here.”
Rather, he added, the company just had not shared a building plan with the city yet.
Some city residents have complained for a number of years regarding noise coming from the plant, but Lahner said the company had been working diligently to be a “good neighbor.”
“I don’t know that the egg-cracking part of the business has been that big of a deal in recent years,” Lahner said. “I think it has mostly dealt with common neighbor issues.”
Echo Lake Foods employs 450 workers companywide. In addition to Burlington and Franksville, the company operates a production and storage facility in Owensboro, Ky.
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