Spreading the word—Duke Food Productions is coming to town
by Edward Southerland
Monday evening, while the two presidential candidates were debating how to create jobs, Bonham was going them one better, by actually bringing jobs to the city.
With an afternoon reception at city hall for Duke Food Production’s president, Andrew Smart and the company’s management executives, Mayor Roy Floyd formally announced that the Greenville, South Carolina company, is opening a new production facility on Albert Broadfoot Street to manufacture the their line of branded and private label, homemade quality spreads, dips, and desserts. Duke expects to invest $10 million in the facility, which should be on line in the second quarter of 2017. Initially the operation will create about seventy-five new jobs for the community and that number should grow to two hundred when production reaches full capacity.
Smart did not wait to demonstrate Duke’s commitment to creating a positive impact in the community, however. Before the announcement, he presented Bonham Life Scout Austin Summerville with a check for $1,000 to complete his Eagle Scout project—handicapped parking spaces at the Bonham Sports Complex.
Mayor Floyd opened the proceedings by acknowledging the contributions of the Bonham Economic Development Corporation and Executive Director Stephen J. Filpowicz, as well as members of the city council, and others in bringing Duke Food to the city. He also introduced Janie Havel, a representative of the governor’s office. The state is providing $970,000 for the Duke project.
Next came County Judge Spanky Carter, who welcomed the company and promised the support of Fannin County for the new operation. Floyd then turned the podium over to Duke Food’s president, Andrew Smart.
Smart introduced his management team, Executive Vice President John Mack, CFO Ben Leinster, and Vice President for Marketing and Sales Chris Collins, and then offered a few thoughts on the company’s first expansion outside of South Carolina.
“You can build a plant and manufacture a product anywhere,” Smart said, “but that’s not really what we do. It’s not what we value. We value people. … What we want to do is be part of the communities … and to have an impact. We want to value what you value. … We know that coming here is not about making product; it’s not our purpose. Our product helps fuel our purpose. Our purpose is about impacting people.”
Duke Food Productions will mark a century in business in 2017. The enterprise started with Eugenia Duke, used her family’s homemade mayonnaise to make sandwiches with homemade spreads for the soldiers stationed at Camp Seiver outside Greenville, South Carolina. The doughboys liked what Mrs. Duke was making so much that in 1919 she sold more than ten thousand sandwiches in one day.
In 1929, she sold the mayonnaise recipe to C. F. Sauer, and soon Duke Mayonnaise was a Southern staple. When Mrs. Duke sold the recipes for her sandwich spreads to her bookkeeper, Alan Hart, another blockbuster product hit the market. Hart made the sandwiches wholesale, selling them to company stores in factories and mills, as well as drug stores, soda fountains, and other food vendors.
The business stayed in the family, and over the next thirty years it grew to provide even more products and establishing a number of restaurants in South Carolina. The company was so successful that they build a new Duke Sandwich plant in Simpsonville, SC in 2006, and in 2012 added an 80,000 square foot operation in Easley, SC.
Now they are growing again, and Bonham will be the beneficiary of that growth. The Bonham plant will be the company’s first outside South Carolina, and as noted by Smart, “… will be the new model; the one we will bring customers to; the one we will build on.” It is something Bonham will build on as well.