Mushroom farm & packing company in Zellwood explores 45k SF plant expansion

California-based Monterey Mushrooms is considering an expansion of its Orlando-area production facility, drawn to invest by the area's population growth and demand for its third-party logistics service, a lead executive with the company told GrowthSpotter.

The farmer and packer of fresh mushrooms has 10 facilities around the country, including one in the Zellwood area of northwest Orange County at 5949 Sadler Road.

The company has more than 230,500 square feet of conditioned area under roof now there at its plant on 37 acres, with another 42-plus acres of undeveloped property to its rear.

Monterey Mushrooms is now considering an expansion of its cold storage and packing building by 45,386 square feet on the property's southeast corner, with additional parking and stormwater ponds.

"This is still in the early stages of planning, a project on our three-year capital planning as a company, so we've scheduled a meeting (with Orange County planners) to discuss the permitting requirements," said Greg Sweet, regional vice president.

"We not only grow fresh mushrooms at that facility, we also do a lot of cross-docking of other products that come in which we redistribute to customers in Florida," he continued. "This would allow us to expand product lines and how we package our mushrooms, and our redistribution of other products."

Monterey Mushrooms has its own third-party logistics trucking company that it uses to haul the mushrooms to grocery distribution centers, as well as other perishable farm products from the area by renting space on its trucks to those producers.

The company has not determined when it will implement the Zellwood expansion in the next two to three years, Sweet said. Preparing the building layout and design plans may come in 2018.

Brandon-based Aspire Engineering is civil engineer on the project, and RCS of Tampa is the prospective design-build contractor, which specializes in cold-storage facilities.

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