Cava, a Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant brand, has announced the grand opening of a new food production and packaging plant in Verona, Va., which will process the company’s proprietary dips and spreads used in its restaurants and sold through its consumer packaged goods business.
The company made an initial investment of approximately $35 million in the plant, according to the release, in order to build a scalable infrastructure to support the company’s growth. It is expected that the plant will produce the company’s tzatziki, harissa and Crazy Feta dips and spread, along with some select dressings. The Verona facility joins an existing facility in Laurel, Md., to support at least 750 Cava restaurants, the release noted.
Brett Schulman, co-founder and CEO of Cava, noted that the Verona plant is part of the vertically integrated, at-scale model Cava has implemented, which reduces complexity, improves overall costs, and maintains quality, consistency and integrity of the company’s recipes.
Verona will have the capacity to produce more than 100,000 pounds of products daily, and it will use high-pressure processing (HPP) to cold-pasteurize the product. It incorporates eco-friendly landscaping design, welcoming employee welfare areas and an environmentally friendly CO2 refrigeration system
The facility also features ecological landscaping, airy, welcoming spaces for team members, and a custom, state-of-the-art, and environmentally friendly CO2 refrigeration system that cools production and warehouse spaces.
