Northeast Foods to open bun factory in N.C.

Northeast Foods of Baltimore, a commercial bakery owned by the Paterakis and Tsakalos families of Maryland, plans to build a $25.4 million bakery in Clayton, N.C.

North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue and Northeast President Bill Paterakis announced Monday that Northeast will begin construction of the 80,000-square-foot facility this summer and open it in spring 2011. Expected to create 84 jobs over the next two years, the project will bring to six the number of states in which Northeast operates a baking facility, after Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Affiliated with H&S Bakery, also owned by the Paterakis and Tsakalos families and located in East Baltimore, Northeast has been a key supplier to McDonald's restaurants since 1965 and is now McDonald's largest supplier of buns in the United States. The new plant is being constructed exclusively to serve McDonald's restaurants in North Carolina, South Carolina and parts of Virginia. It will feature the latest technology in automated baking equipment, giving it the capability of making up to 72,000 buns per hour.

Construction is made possible in part by a $350,000 grant from the state of North Carolina, according to Perdue.