Freshly inks new lease in Gloucester County

Prepared meals company Freshly Inc. will open a second assembly and distribution facility in New Jersey in Gloucester County.

The 234,000-square-foot unit in East Greenwich will be Freshly’s largest distribution center and is equipped to assemble and ship 1.6 million meals per week at peak capacity.

The facility will be pumping meals out by February 2022, according to an April 19 announcement, and will create 340 jobs.

Its Linden facility, which employs 70 people, will continue operating.

“The addition of a new facility of this size will bring hundreds of new jobs to East Greenwich and allow us to significantly scale our meal production to move us closer to the goal of being in every household in America. We are thankful for our partnership with Governor Murphy and his team for their leadership in assisting us with this significant expansion of our company,” said Freshly Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mike Wystrach in a prepared statement.

For Freshly, this is just one of several new facilities, with recently opened plants in Commerce, Calif. and Austell, Ga. The company was purchased by Nestlé in November for $950 million, with the possibility for an additional $550 million if Freshly hits certain growth targets and benchmarks.