Apr. 28—Ben E. Keith Co.'s multi-million dollar facility, first announced in 2019, officially opened its doors on Wednesday.
Located at 601 Ben E. Keith NW, the facility spans 274,000 square feet and includes regional offices and a distribution center, according to Todd Hickam, Ben E. Keith's New Mexico division general manager. But as the company expands in the future, so too can the facility — which, according to Hickam, can cap out at 612,000 square feet. Though a groundbreaking took place Wednesday, the facility had originally opened in March 2021, Hickam added.
"It's the most technologically advanced distribution warehouse in the southwest," Hickam said. "We have a couple of automated aisles that actually employ more employees than the old aisles but it allows us to provide more products for our customers."
The facility came together after years of planning an expansion — Hickam said the growth of the company outpaced the former facility — before Ben E. Keith was approved for an $80 million industrial revenue bond by Bernalillo County in October 2018. The company had purchased the land, a 50.2-acre parcel off Gallatin Place NW, in 2017 to build its facility on.
Hickam previously told the Journal the property made the most logistical sense for shipping purposes considering its proximity to the highway. Hickam said the move to a new, larger facility has led to the company shipping 300% more product than it did in its previous 63,000-square-foot facility off Broadway Boulevard SE.
The new Ben E. Keith facility includes freezer space that alone is larger than the company's former headquarters, Hickam said, as well as 40 total dock doors to speed up loading and unloading trucks, a modern test kitchen and an open-plan office with more space for collaboration. Hickam said one of the meeting rooms in the facility can hold 138 employees at one time and is outfitted with Microsoft Teams to adapt to the more modern work environment.
"Our entire facility at the Broadway location could have fit in our current freezer and still had 20,000 square feet left," Hickam said. "There's about 12 rooms within the facility that have that technology to where the people sitting in the room will be on the same camera, if you will, for a video conference that allows us to be able to do those type of things."
Ben E. Keith primarily deals with food and beverage distribution across the state and in bordering regions, such as El Paso and southern Colorado. The company first made the move to New Mexico in 1991 when it had purchased ABC Produce Distributors.