Kraft Pizza Company Announces Plant Expansion, Packers Sponsorship

LITTLE CHUTE, Wis., July 24 /PRNewswire/ — Kraft Pizza Company — maker of DiGiorno frozen pizza — broke ground today for the expansion of its manufacturing plant in Little Chute, WI, and announced that DiGiorno has been named the Official Pizza of the Green Bay Packers. Little Chute Kraft employees, Kraft visitors, representatives of state and local governments and Packers officials gathered at the facility to celebrate.

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The pizza plant, located at 401 West North Avenue, will add 100,000 square feet and a new parking lot as part of the expansion. A new pizza crust bakery line and assembly line will be installed, enabling a significant increase in production capacity. Construction beginning now is expected to be completed by the end of this year, with equipment installation and production start-up of the new lines planned for April 2009. Employment at the plant is anticipated to increase by approximately 300 with the expansion.

As if the groundbreaking and official announcement of the expansion weren’t enough to swell hometown pride, Kraft Pizza Company and the Green Bay Packers prompted cheers with the news that DiGiorno will be the Packers’ Official Pizza for the next three seasons, with exclusive rights to concession pizza sales at Lambeau Field and numerous fan-pleasing consumer promotions accompanying the sponsorship. Thrilling the crowd, Green Bay Packer Defensive End Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila (KGB) joined the festivities. And, Little Chute Kraft employees had the chance to join a drawing to be the lucky winner of four tickets to Family Night at Lambeau Field.

To be eligible for the in-house ticket raffle, Kraft employees were asked to contribute food items toward a collection intended for Paul’s Pantry, which distributes food to the needy of Brown County.

“This is an exciting day that highlights Kraft Pizza Company’s strong heritage and continuing commitment in Wisconsin,” said Tim Cofer, President, Kraft Pizza Company. “We make almost all of our Kraft Pizza Company brands at our plants in Little Chute and Medford. We also purchase more than 75 percent of the cheese we use in our pizzas from Wisconsin.”

The village of Little Chute’s fame as the home of popular frozen pizza goes back to the 1960s, to privately-held Jack’s Frozen Pizza, Inc. In 1989, Jack’s purchased a supermarket distribution center and renovated it as a manufacturing facility to support the burgeoning growth of the Jack’s brand in the Midwest. In 1992, Kraft Foods, which had earlier purchased Tombstone Pizza, acquired Jack’s. Within two years, the facility doubled capacity, and began a growth spiral as Wisconsin-made Jack’s and Tombstone brands became household words nationwide, and DiGiorno Rising Crust Pizza made its debut in 1995, revolutionizing the frozen pizza industry.

ABOUT KRAFT PIZZA COMPANY

Kraft Pizza Company is the leader in the U.S. frozen pizza category. DiGiorno is Kraft’s largest pizza brand, but with our portfolio of powerful pizza brands that also includes California Pizza Kitchen, Tombstone, Jack’s and South Beach Living, every consumer can find a pizza to savor with our offerings. This year, the company introduced DiGiorno For One and California Kitchen Pizza For One pizzas, personal-size frozen pizzas that offer truly delicious taste in less than five minutes, and DiGiorno Ultimate Focaccia pizza, with artisan-inspired crusts topped with specialty ingredients that bring to life the tastes of Italian pizzerias.

ABOUT KRAFT FOODS INC.

For more than a century, Kraft (http://www.kraft.com/) has offered delicious foods and beverages that fit the way consumers live. Today, we are turning the brands that consumers have lived with for years into brands they can’t live without. Millions of times a day in more than 150 countries, consumers reach for their favorite Kraft brands, including nine with revenues exceeding $1 billion: Kraft cheeses, dinners and dressings; Oscar Mayer meats; Philadelphia cream cheese; Maxwell House coffee; Nabisco cookies and crackers and its Oreo brand; Jacobs coffees; Milka chocolates; and LU biscuits. Kraft is one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies with annual revenues exceeding $37 billion, more than 100,000 employees and more than 180 manufacturing and processing facilities globally. The company’s stock (NYSE:KFT) is listed on the Standard & Poor’s 100 and 500 indexes as well as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and Ethibel Sustainability Index.

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Source: Kraft Pizza Company

CONTACT: Cathy Pernu or Joyce Hodel, both for Kraft Pizza Company,
+1-847-646-4538; or Aaron Popkey of Green Bay Packers, +1-920-569-7211

Web site: http://www.kraft.com/