Sheetz Inc. began a whole new business as Sheetz Bros. Kitchen started operations. The state of the art, $46 million kitchen facility is the cornerstone of the latest Sheetz plan to bring a higher level of convenience to its customers.

A press conference is scheduled for Monday, July 14 at 11:00am at the Sheetz Bros. Kitchen at 219 Corporate Boulevard, Claysburg, Pennsylvania.

The facility is 140,000 square feet and located in the Walter Business Park next to the Sheetz Distribution Center in Claysburg, Pennsylvania. Here, new ready to eat food products will be made and delivered fresh daily to all of the company’s 350 locations across six states. The Kitchen has plans for several new bakery items as well. The bakery will produce a new variety of Shweetz donuts, cookies, muffins, and cinnamon rolls. Biscuits, sub rolls, hamburger and hot dog rolls will also be made and shipped fresh daily.

Sheetz Bros. Kitchen is a completely new distribution network for Sheetz. There is a fleet of delivery trucks and drivers who work solely for the Kitchen, making fresh deliveries every day to every store.

“This facility will change the way we do business,” says Stan Sheetz, president and CEO, Sheetz Inc. “It will allow us to expand our offer and give more choices to our customers.”

A large part of the decision to develop this new division of the company was made as a way to simplify tasks for employees at the stores–allowing them more time to be on the floor, thus improving customer service. Made To Order ingredients will now be prepared at the new facility. The centralized production of these ingredients will provide higher quality and more consistency in how stores make Made To Order menu items. This system will also allow for more efficient work by store employees because it takes some of the complexities out of their daily routines.

“Our mission of Total Customer Focus is always in the foreground of any decisions we make about the stores. Filling condiment bottles, baking sub rolls and cookies, and prepping of other ingredients is time consuming. By moving these tasks to the kitchen facility, we make the in-store routine easier and free up our employees to be out front serving customers.”

Additionally, a new MTgo! line of menu items of grab and go sandwiches, salads, and yogurt parfaits will be made at the kitchen and delivered fresh daily.

This project has been five years in the making. More than 450 jobs will be created over the next five years including production employees, drivers, and administrative personnel.

It was developed with help from several federal, state, county, and local governmental agencies. The Altoona Blair County Development Corporation was also instrumental in helping complete Sheetz Bros. Kitchen.

“ABCD Corp. is proud to have the continued opportunity to partner with the entire Sheetz family and corporate team in their commitment and investment to the Blair County Area and the I-99 Corridor,” says Martin J. Marasco, president and CEO of ABCD Corp. “We consider our collaborative efforts for economic development here at ABCD Corp. an item of great pride and the Sheetz Bros. Kitchen project demonstrated this effort perfectly. Through the combined vision, goals, and efforts from federal, state, county, and township agencies along with the business and financial institutions, we were able to pull together all of our resource towards making this project a realization.”

Sheetz Bros. Kitchen will be part of the Sheetz Distribution Services division, led by Ray Ryan, executive vice president of distribution services, along with Darrin Pohar, director of distribution service and Jarrod Sharpe, commissary manager.