The people at Litehouse Foods in Lowell make some of the best dressings you will ever pour on a salad or dip a carrot stick into.

 

Since the company started making French dressing under the name Chadalee Farms in 1932 they stuck to a formula that worked: all natural fresh ingredients with no preservatives or MSG, which is why you have to look in the refrigerated section to find them. Fast forward 77 years and Litehouse has grown into a regional phenomenon that now employs 150 people and grew almost 5% in 2009.

 

Total production in Lowell last year was 74 million units – they are looking to do 78 million in 2010. Their production of single serving portions was up 42% from 2008. Litehouse launched 14 new products in 2009 and their Tangy Orange Citrus dressing won Dressing of the Year. They also launched a website promoting healthy eating: www.30salads30days.com.

 

Not only did everyone keep their job in Lowell, but three positions were added including a new position of Plant Engineer. I met Greg Halfmann on a recent tour of the plant. He is using his mechanical engineering degree from MSU to help Litehouse strategize to make the most of their nine production lines and multiple mixing decks. Greg is relying on the help of the nine full time people who maintain all the pumps, piping, mixers, dispensers, and packaging machines that enable Litehouse to do what it does.

 

I began by using the word “people” for a reason. A visit to the Litehouse plant will put you in touch with a lot of happy people. I don’t think for a minute that the smiles were put on for our benefit because the overall “vibe” of the entire plant is one of people who enjoy what they are doing. The smiles were visible way across the floor of the plant – they were not put on at the last minute to impress visitors.

 

Susan Serne started in the office at Litehouse in 1982 and she is now the Director of Operations in Lowell. She has seen the production facility grow three different times and the staff increase from 30 people to 150. She explained that the owners have always maintained a workplace characterized by the guiding principles of faith, stewardship, integrity, accountability, and a commitment to excellence. “The way we have gotten where we are is because of the people who work here,” was how Serne summed it up.

 

With the exception of the new Plant Engineer, everyone else I met on our tour had been with Litehouse anywhere from six to eighteen years or more. The first person I met was Arleigh Sterzick. Arleigh was just finishing up mixing a 110 gallon batch of the Bleu Cheese dressing my wife is addicted to. (She is not alone--Bleu Cheese is the best seller.) He was on his way home but took an extra ten minutes to explain what he did every day on his Mixing Deck – one of several in the plant.

 

Steps away from Arleigh, Bruce Pendleton and Jenny Anderson were conducting some quality control tests on product samples. They rattled off a long list of the many ways they test the dips, sauces, and dressings produced every day. Most Litehouse products have a shelf life of only 125 to 180 days; Bruce and Jenny do their part to make sure they taste fantastic when opened.

 

As I worked my way over to the spice room, where all the dry ingredients are put together for Arleigh and the other mixers to work with, we met Tammy Seaman. Tammy was gathering an assortment of sample products to send out to a prospective customer. The Litehouse sales staff has been doing their job because part of the growth last year came from an increase in business along the East coast.

 

Transportation director Josh Michelin explained that Litehouse in Lowell has nine trucks of their own on the road. Those trucks are supplemented with four other Michigan-based carriers to take products to 39 states. No wonder the production lines run three shifts with occasional weekends during crunch times.

 

Chadalee Farms has always been passionate about their people and their products. In 1997 when they merged with Litehouse, another family-owned business based in Idaho, it was a perfect mixture of similar corporate cultures. The business philosophy of Chadalee owner Wendell Christoff fit hand in glove with Doug and Edward Hawkins, the two brothers who owned Litehouse.

 

Figuring out why everyone at Litehouse was smiling and motivated did not require a whole lot of detective work. They are all part owners of this growing, successful company. Christoff and the Hawkins brothers had many standing offers for the company from huge food producing corporations. They could have sold to the highest bidder, collected their millions and left their employees to fend for themselves.

 

What Litehouse did instead was make 30% of the company available to the employees through an ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) in 2006. The long term plan is to have the ESOP control 100% of the company stock. The better the company does, the more valuable the stock that each employee was given becomes. That is a motivator for sure.

 

In addition to his job of Wastewater Operator at the Lowell plant, John Gorman is the co-chair of the Lite Team. The Lite Team helps employees to take better advantage of the benefits of ESOP. He related that there was some resistance at first, but explained that it was because everyone did not fully understand the value of employee ownership.

 

That does not seem to be the case any longer – no wonder the dressings taste so good, they are made by happy people!