Trident Seafoods has opened a $40 million production and distribution center in Carrollton, Ga., providing 175 full-time jobs and the capacity to produce 50,000 tons of finished products annually for the U.S. market.
"We are excited to add Trident to our family of customers, especially within the valuable refrigerated cargo market," said Georgia Ports Authority Executive Director Curtis Foltz. "This is an important win for Georgia, and for the Port of Savannah."
Savannah's Garden City Terminal offers 84 refrigerated container racks and 814 chassis plug-ins, powering 2,830 refrigerated boxes at a time. Another 20 racks should be complete by the end of the year, adding 480 refrigerated container slots.
"Savannah's refrigerated cargo infrastructure is unmatched on the U.S. East Coast, and is an important asset as Georgia seeks to lure more business in the area of food production," Foltz said.
Founded in 1973 by Chuck Bundrant with two fishermen partners and a single vessel, the family-owned Trident Seafoods is now North America's largest vertically integrated seafood harvesting and processing company.
The Seattle-based company's Carrollton site is 7 miles from I-20, 30 miles from I-85, and approximately 50 miles east of Atlanta.
Company officials said the state-of-the-art production plant and distribution center has been engineered to meet the needs of Trident customers on the Eastern seaboard. The new facility will streamline the production process for a growing number of breaded and battered seafood items, and offer significant logistical advantages for major regional markets.
While Trident customers include major Eastern retailers, club stores, restaurant chains and foodservice distributors, until recently the company's brick-and-mortar presence extended only as far east as Motley, Minn.