Clayco

Architect:

Lamar Johnson Collaborative

Client:

Golden State Foods

Scope Of Work

With a focus on Food Safety, Golden State Foods selected Clayco as the design-builder for their new, state-of-the-art, 160,000-square-foot food processing plant; located on a 50-acre site in Opelika, Alabama as a part of the Northeast Industrial Park.
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Golden State Foods is one of the largest diversified suppliers to the retail food and restaurant industries. Their position in the food industry requires them to be laser-focused on providing the utmost quality of product to their clients, which means constantly innovating their process of storing and distributing their products.

Clayco leveraged our integrated approach and experience in designing and building food-grade facilities across the country to meet the challenge of exceeding Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) standards of quality. Clayco’s Technical Assurance Group (TAG) team, an internal team of design and construction experts, was charged with reviewing key design areas and details to ensure we provided the highest quality plant to our client. Using BIM and VDC technology, our TAG team conducted a performance analysis on a digital layout of the facility. The findings of this study were then utilized to implement the most efficient, safe, and compliant design.

The new 160,000-square-foot facility is comprised of 88,000 square feet of production space and 20,000 square feet of industrial freezer, in addition to the office and support areas. The refrigerated areas of the building are surrounded by insulated metal panels and are temperature controlled by a central ammonia system. The plant also comes equipped with 12 exterior dock positions and 30 trailer positions. The facility’s access to the docks assists in expediting refrigerated food directly into a refrigerated trailer, helping to ensure that the client receives their products at the peak of freshness.