WANTED: WORKERS
Especially those who don’t mind the hard, hot work of making soup
At the Riverbend Foods plant on the North Side this frosty January day, it’s toasty warm inside, compliments of the giant simmering stainless-steel cauldrons of cream of chickenand tomato soup.
Some 500 hourly and salaried workers make their living at the storied plant, which not too long ago face dan uncertain future.
Originally part of the H.J. Heinz Co. where for decades the Pittsburgh icon produced soups, baby food, ketchup and other condiments, the facility was sold to Del Monte in 2002, which in turn sold it to Treehouse Foods in 2006. After several unsuccessful attempts to find yet another buyer, Treehouse last year struck a deal with the Texas-based private equity firm Insight Equity, which formed a new Pittsburgh-based company to run the operation called Riverbend Foods.
Since stepping in last May, Riverbend has spent some $14 million refurbishing and upgrading equipment, including installing an $8 million boxed soup and gravy line, according to CEO Tom Lavan.
Now the business is facing another hurdle.
Mr. Lavan wants to ramp up production on the new line, yet he is having trouble finding the roughly 45 people needed to fill the jobs. Altogether, the company is looking to fill some 80 openings — mostly hourly production and equipment maintenance jobs, but also salaried positions such as clerical staff, customer service reps and production and qualityassurance managers.
“We don’t have the big name like Heinz where people immediately say, ‘I want to work for them,”’ said chief operating officer Bill Hood. “We have to do a better job advertising who we are.”
Roughly 85 percent of the work force belongs to the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Production workers start at $13.50 an hour, while equipment maintenance jobs including electricians and mechanics start at $22.09. After three years, pay for production workers reaches $19 an hour, while employees in the boiler room with special expertise can make upwards of $35 an hour, Mr. Lavan said.
Benefits include free parking, one to four weeks paid vacation, health care coverage and a “generous” 401(k) match.
Still, “It’s difficult work,” Mr. Lavan acknowledged. It also can be monotonous.
Most production and maintenance employees are on their feet all day, working in two shifts from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. A third shift from 2 to 6 a.m. also is needed to sanitize equipment.
The round-the-clock activity continues five days a week, increasing to six days during the busy season from June through December.
And the same bubbling hot vats of soup, baby food, sauces and gravies that keep the building comfortable in the winter can make it suffocatingly hot during the summer. Most of the four-story, 625,000-square-foot plant is too big to be air conditioned. Riverbend has installed more exhaust fans on the roof in an effort to bring the temperature down.
“It’s better than when we showed up... but it is hot,” Mr. Lavan said.
On the second floor — where steam-spitting sterilizers can scald the air to 110 degrees as they heat cans, jars and cartons of product to kill bacteria — workers are required to periodically escape to airconditioned cooling rooms to stay safe.
Mr. Lavan and Mr. Hood were recruited to run Riverbend by Insight Equity, which has invested in a variety of industries and businesses since it was founded in 2000. According to its website, it focuses on underperforming companies with revenue in the range of $50 million to $1 billion.
Mr. Hood stressed that workers at Riverbend have the chance to advance from production to higherpaying supervising and
“We don’t have the big name like Heinz where people immediately say, ‘I want to work for them...”’ Bill Hood, chief operating officer
Mr. Hood stressed that workers at Riverbend have the chance to advance from production to higher-paying supervising and maintenance jobs.
“The opportunities for people to grow here are pretty special,” he said. “We look inside before we look outside,” a benefit of being an independent company where decisions are made locally, he said.
Marty Azen, who started at the bottom 23 years ago as a summer intern while attending college, was recently promoted to plant manager.
Outfitted in white jacket, hair net, ear plugs, goggles and hard hat, he introduced a similarly-clad reporter to a 9,000pound batch of thick, goldencolored condensed cream of chicken soup — the kind that cooks generally use as an ingredient in other recipes.
But it’s the strong aroma of tomato soup that permeates the air, overpowering the other products, which this day included 2.5 ounce jars of beginner peas.
Some 90 percent of Riverbend’s $200 million-a-year business is in producing private-label-products for grocers such as Giant Eagle, Kroger and Walmart. The rest is co-packing work for name brands like Heinz.
Overall, roughly 80 percent of production is devoted to canned soup, a product whose sales cycle through the seasons with demand typically higher in winter.
Mr. Lavan thinks the future is in replacing cans with lightweight sturdy cartons — ready for production on the company’s new $8 million Tetra Recart brand box filling line — which take up less room on shelves and can save a bundle in transportation costs.
Production at the plant is mostly automated, but still requires humans for a variety of jobs, such as feeding cardboard trays, lids and labels into machines; weighing ingredients; inspecting raw vegetables for twigs, rocks and other foreign matter as they pass by on conveyor belts; monitoring cooking and sterilizing equipment; andd riving forklifts.
Many people prefer working on the first floor in labeling, packaging and warehousing. The area is more climate controlled and they don’t have to wear hair nets, Mr. Azen said.
In any case, the company provides on-the-job training, so no experience is needed, although certain qualities help.
“I tell people, you need to be attentive to be safe,” he said. “And you need to be motivated to keep the line running.”