Rey Esquibel has worked his way up to the top leadership post at the Rich’s frozen foods manufacturing plant in Brownsville.
Esquibel says his “fingerprints are all over” the 130,000-square-foot facility on east 14th Street. His work ethic matches that of the 400 employees who work at the facility. Rich’s Brownsville plant is located just blocks away from what is known in the city as the four corners intersection where Boca Chica and International boulevards meet.
The Buffalo-based frozen foods manufacturer has been in Brownsville for six decades. In that time, the company has developed employees like Esquibel, who started at Rich’s nearly 25 years ago. His first job was working a night shift, then becoming a line supervisor on his way to being promoted to being a products and operations manager. Five months ago, he rose to the top spot at the Brownsville facility – plant manager.
“We have so much pride in our products,” Esquibel said. “It’s amazing to see all that we do here every day, and then going to a Wal-Mart or a Sam’s, seeing our products and knowing they were made in Brownsville.”
It is a plant whose mozzarella cheese sticks and popcorn shrimp products have seen such a growth in customer demand that a $17.5 million investment is now underway that will more than double the size of the Brownsville plant and add more than 100 new jobs to the local economy.
Adding Cold Storage
“We bread it, fry it, freeze it and pack it,” is how Esquibel describes the daily operations at Rich’s Brownsville plant.
It’s a seven-day-a-week manufacturing operation. The Brownsville plant receives raw materials such as shrimp from Central American countries and then goes about a multi-step process to prepare and produce hundreds of boxes daily bearing the SeaPak and Farm Rich brand names. They’re all part of Rich’s extensive list of products that includes biscuits and bagels, cookies and donuts, and in Brownsville’s case, seafood and appetizers.
Rich’s Brownsville operations currently do not include the cold storage of what the local plant produces. In 2025, that will change with addition of a whole new wing now under construction directly behind the Brownsville plant. Esquibel says the new cold storage space will greatly increase the Brownsville plant’s footprint and allow it to store what’s produced locally before it’s shipped via truck to markets around the country.
“We’ll be adding so much more capacity,” Esquibel said. “It’s exciting times for us here in Brownsville.”
Capital Investments
The plant’s expansion in Brownsville comes as the result of a $17.5 million investment that utilizes capital from a program administered by the U.S. Treasury Department.
The investment group National New Markets Fund of Los Angeles is the recipient of tax credit allocations from the treasury. New Markets then sold a portion of these allocations to another investment group, Dudley Ventures. The latter group is using the capital from its purchase to invest in Rich’s Brownsville plant to expand operations in providing economic development in a community with a poverty rate above national averages.
The $17.5 million investment will fund the acquisition of new equipment as part of the Brownsville plant’s 150,000-square-foot expansion to add cold storage capabilities on the facility’s current site of operations. It’s estimated the investment and subsequent expansion will result in 132 new full-time jobs at Rich’s Brownsville plant.
For Esquibel, the plant manager, it all reflects the quality of work done by Rich’s employees in Brownsville, of which many have worked in the plant for over 10 years.
“They’re the ones who make it happen,” he said. “It’s their work ethic and the pride they take in their work. We’re so proud of all they do to make us successful.”