Charles & Alice USA, the U.S. division of Charles et Alice, is spending $10.6 million to renovate and equip a vacant building near Route 283.

Renovations to the 2870 Yellow Goose Road facility, formerly home to Rivard Popcorn and Hain Celestial, got under way in March.

Production is expected to begin in September with 20 employees, a work force that could rise to 50 in three years.

A ceremony to formally launch the project is set for 10 a.m. Friday at the site. Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley is scheduled to attend.

“This building offers a lot of advantages,” said Laurent Herlin, managing director of sales and marketing.

“It used to be a food manufacturing site and already has a part of the infrastructure needed to operate.

“It’s also really close to communication axis and freeways. And of course, it’s close to orchards where we’ll source our apples,” said Herlin.

Charles & Alice has signed a 10-year lease, with renewal options, on the 55,000-square-foot building.

The East Hempfield Township building, off State Road, is across the street from the Kellogg cereal plant.

Charles & Alice said the plant initially will make 40 million pouches of applesauce, weighing from 3.2 ounces to 4.0 ounces apiece, per year.

That figure eventually will rise to 120 million pouches, the company predicted.

Most of the applesauce will be made without added sugar.

Charles & Alice will sell its applesauce to grocery stores, mass-merchandise stores and food-service operators.

But its ultimate customers are children.

By putting the applesauce in pouches, the firm hopes to make fruit-consumption by children “simpler and more convenient,” explained Herlin.

The Yellow Goose Road site will be the second U.S. facility for Charles & Alice, joining a distribution center in Elizabeth, N.J.

The distribution center, run for Charles & Alice by a third party, opened in 2011.

The Elizabeth facility will continue to operate, even with the opening of the Yellow Goose Road location.

Charles & Alice’s arrival here comes after months of studying the possibility of having a U.S. manufacturing plant.

Helping to bring Pennsylvania to the company’s attention was the state Office of International Business Development.

The office, part of the Department of Community and Economic Development, helped coordinate Gov. Tom Corbett’s trade mission to France in March 2012.

During that trip, Corbett met with Charles & Alice officials about the possibilities for the company to grow in the state.

Also involved in the effort to recruit Charles & Alice were the Governor's Action Team, the Lancaster-based nonprofit EDC Finance, the state Agriculture Department and the Team Pennsylvania Foundation.

Charles & Alice picked the Yellow Goose Road site over another local site as well as locations in the Pacific Northwest and New York state.

To help persuade Charles & Alice to pick Pennsylvania, the DCED proposed a $1.57 million package of financial incentives.

The package consists of a $22,500 employee-training grant, a $150,000 Pennsylvania First grant for equipment, building improvements and other uses, $150,000 in job creation tax credits and a $1.25 million low-interest loan from the Machinery and Equipment Loan Fund (MELF).

Charles & Alice has accepted the funding proposal, but must still apply for each part and agree to the terms prior to receiving it.

Thierry Goubault, Charles & Alice’s chief executive officer, credited Corbett and his team for being “really helpful in identifying the best location for us.

“We are impressed by their energy and their commitment to making this project happen,” said Goubault.

The CEO said the site offers the “perfect combination” of “a talented workforce, high quality apples, a supportive community and a business-friendly state government.”

Orchards that will supply the Yellow Goose Road plant are in Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York state, said Herlin.

Charles & Alice has selected a Leola-based distributor, Hess Bros. Fruit Co., to be its apple supplier.

In the future, it’s possible that the local plant could broaden its product line to other fruits, said Herlin.

But the first priority, she emphasized, is being a successful producer of the applesauce pouches.

Charles & Alice is leasing the industrially zoned property from Dogleg Properties, which has ties to Rivard Popcorn.

Rich Wolman and Deepa Balepur of Compass Real Estate handled the lease transaction.

The Yellow Goose Road building, near State Road, was constructed in 1984 by Rivard Popcorn, according to newspaper files.

Rivard Popcorn got bought in increments by World Gourmet Marketing of Butler, N.J., which completed the purchase in 2008.

World Gourmet Marketing, in turn, was bought two years later by Hain Celestial of Melville, N.Y.

Hain Celestial, which had a Greenfield Corporate Center distribution center, opted to consolidate the two activities here.

It did so in the former Nichia America building on Hempland Road.

Hain Celestrial’s Yellow Goose Road operation moved to the Hempland Road building last summer.

(Tim Mekeel, "French applesauce maker to open $10m plant in East Hempfield Twp.," Lancaster Online, 04/17/14)