McCall Farms to expand business

By Candace Jarrett
Morning News Reporter
Published: May 21, 2008

McCall Farms Inc. is growing again. This time, an expansion will add 100,000 square feet to the business.

“Last year, we expanded into the freezing business and we are now doubling that portion of the business,” Marion Swink, president of the company, said. “The line that we put in was a small line ... we had always planned to expand at some point, but it’s really just doing better than we expected.”

Swink said it was a big transition to go from just canning food products to also marketing frozen food products.

“What we are doing is doubling capacity, which would mean another 25 jobs,” he said. “We’re doing 15,000 pounds an hour of frozen produce and it’ll (the expansion) take it to 30,000 pounds an hour.”

Part of the expansion already is complete just off South Irby Street in Effingham. The bright white building is an upgrade and expansion of the green bean production factory area.

McCall farms secured a no-interest loan via Pee Dee Electric Cooperative’s USDA Rural Development Loan program last year to help with the initial expansion.

“Pee Dee Electric is proud and grateful for the opportunity to partner with such an accomplished local industry like McCall Farms,” Toy Nettles, president of Pee Dee Electric Cooperative, said in a press release. “Through resources from the USDA, we can serve as a financier for (a) portion of this exciting expansion. (We) recognize what a trademark McCall Farms has become for the Pee Dee region.”

Swink said the new equipment processes three to four loads of green beans to either be canned or frozen.

“We’re adding an additional IQF (individually frozen cube) area and doubling the storage room as part of this expansion,” he said. “We’re putting out about 2 million servings of produce each day. It’s like putting a serving on every person’s plate in South Carolina and we think 100,000 square feet of additional space will allow us to keep up and have room to grow.”

The company was established in 1838 with farming. In 1954, it expanded into the canning business.

“We can,” Swink said. “That’s our slogan, and that’s what we do.”

Swink said the company still farms a great deal of high-value crops, such as greens, turnips, squash, black-eyed peas, butter beans, green beans, okra and other vegetables.

McCall Farms products include Margaret Holmes, Peanut Patch, Greer, Lord Chesterfield and many private labels. It also packages frozen vegetables for such grocers as Kroger.

Swink’s nephew, McCall Swink, whom Swink said would take over as president upon his retirement, said the latest expansion project would be complete in the near future.

“December 2009,” he said. “That’s when we have to have it done because that’s when we’ll need the capacity.”