Indy-based Delco Foods plans expansion into Whitestown, 132 jobs

Indianapolis-based Delco Foods of Indiana is making plans to open a cheese-processing, printing and warehouse facility in Whitestown that will have more than 130 employees.

The Italian and specialty foods distributor plans to spend more than $5 million to equip a new, 150,000-square-foot building it will lease at the intersection of Perry Worth Road and E. County Road 500 S., east of Interstate 65.

Delco Foods, a 62-year-old, family-owned company, said it intends to hire 132 employees for the facility by 2024 who will earn an average wage of $26 an hour. More than 110 of those employees would be hired by the end of 2020. 

The Boone County Economic Development Corp. said the company would continue its Indianapolis operations at 4850 W. 78th St. on the city's northwest side after opening the new facility. The company is out of expansion space at the site, which it opened in 2001.

The company distributes premium food products, including sauces, meats, pasta, cheeses and baking supplies. Delco is a founding member of the Bellissimo network, a nationwide group of food processor/distributors that enables its members to locate high-end food products for its customers.

The food distributor has requested a personal property tax abatement from Whitestown that would save the company, 70 percent, or about $193,000, over a seven-year period.

Delco would invest in refrigerated docks, cheese-processing equipment and custom pizza-box printing presses, among other equipment.

The company plans to lease a building that Indianapolis-based SCP Acquisitions LLC intends to build. Construction is anticipated to begin in June and be complete by March 2020, according to documents SCP Acquisitions filed with Whitestown.

SCP Acquisitions has plans to build six buildings on five parcels totaling 146 acres. The properties are adjacent to Interstate 65 and north of E. County Road 500 S. Several of the buildings could be built on a speculative basis.

Altogether, the commercial buildings would total 1.74 million square feet, ranging in size from 150,000 square feet to 430,000 square feet.

The project would by called 65 Commerce Park. SCP would spend $67 million developing the park, according to tax abatement documents.

The developer has requested real property tax abatements for each of the buildings that would save it approximately $7.6 million over 10 years, according to the documents.

Delco Foods derived its name from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where it was founded by Buddy Robins, who moved the business to Indianapolis in 1956.