Café Valley Bakery Expands Indiana Plant to Support New Mini Cupcake Line

June 26, 2023

Company will spend $5 million to add high-speed production equipment in Marion, Ind., to support product launch announced one month ago.

Andy Hanacek

Café Valley Bakery, a Phoenix-based processor of bakery products for in-store bakeries, club stores, foodservice and c-stores worldwide, has announced plans to invest more than $5 million to expand its Marion, Ind., bakery, creating 83 jobs.

The expansion will add new high-speed equipment to support Café Valley’s new mini cupcake product line, and a hiring event was already planned this week. The Everyday Mini Cupcakes and Seasonal Mini Cupcakes were launched a month ago at the International Dairy Deli Bakery Association (IDDBA) Show, and Café Valley plans to sell the new line nationwide later this year.

A presentation on the new mini cupcakes archived on the company’s site showed seven different Everyday varieties of the mini cupcakes and 11 Seasonal varieties.

According to the company’s Web site, the company was founded in 1987, and built its first plant in Phoenix in 2011. Café Valley Bakery manufactures croissants, muffins, bundt cakes, ring cakes, loaf cakes, danish and turnovers, plus Café Bites and the new mini cupcakes, the site says.

The Marion plant is employs 560 workers and was built in 2014 to better serve customers in the eastern half of the country. A third shift was added in 2017 and the minimum starting wage was raised to $15 per hour in 2021.

About the Author

Andy Hanacek | Senior Editor

Andy Hanacek has covered meat, poultry, bakery and snack foods as a B2B editor for nearly 20 years, and has toured hundreds of processing plants and food companies, sharing stories of innovation and technological advancement throughout the food supply chain. In 2018, he won a Folio:Eddie Award for his unique "From the Editor's Desk" video blogs, and he has brought home additional awards from Folio and ASBPE over the years. In addition, Hanacek led the Meat Industry Hall of Fame for several years and was vice president of communications for We R Food Safety, a food safety software and consulting company.