Snack Alliance expands Hermiston plant

Nearly 5,000 pounds of potatoes an hour are processed into potato chips at the Hermiston Snack Alliance plant, which runs three shifts, six days a week. 

The Hermiston Snack Alliance plant has added two production lines to make riceworks brand snacks. The gourmet, gluten-free brown rice crisps already are being sold in Canada and Great Britain and in certain areas of the U.S.

"The crisps outsell Triscuits in Canada,"said Patrick Lindenbach, chairman of Snack Alliance Inc., which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and has plants in Hermiston and Bristol, Va.

In October, the company announced a $2 million expansion to accommodate the new lines at the Hermiston plant, which opened in July 1997.

"We had one customer in the Northwest at that time,"said Lindenbach. "Now we are the largest private label snack manufacturer in the U.S. and the third-largest snack company in Mexico."

Photogallery of the Hermiston Snack Alliance plant