Carolina-based integrated design-build firm AM King has begun converting a 320,000-square-foot warehouse facility in Pooler, Georgia, near Savannah, into a state-of-the-art food processing facility for Charlotte-area nonprofit MANA Nutrition, Inc. Once construction in Pooler is complete, MANA will use the facility to produce its signature products, Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) and Ready-to-Use Supplemental Foods (RUSF). MANA already operates an 80,000-square-foot production facility in nearby Fitzgerald and is expected to employ more than 100 additional employees when the Pooler facility is completed in January 2025. This additional, larger facility will enable MANA to ramp up production of innovative new products and provide life-saving food to millions of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition around the world.
“As a nonprofit, MANA’s goal is to help as many children as possible as efficiently as possible,” says Mark Moore, CEO of MANA Nutrition. “The markets we serve are not traditional markets because the end users don’t have the capital to buy into. Whereas traditional companies would aim to maximize profits, we are always striving to maximize the impact of limited food aid budgets by producing a higher quality product at a lower price.”
“When we were looking to expand and add to our Savannah facility, we were looking for an experienced design partner who could also execute and manage the plan,” Moore explains. “AM King was the perfect choice for us. What helped even more was that their management aligned with our business. As an employee-owned company, we feel their ethos is very similar to ours.”
“AM King is thrilled to support MANA Nutrition’s noble mission,” said Andre Harris, business unit leader at AM King. “We know lives are literally on the line, and the faster MANA can ship product, the faster lives can be saved. Our food industry expertise, combined with a track record of successfully completing food processing projects on short notice, makes this an ideal partnership.”
Moore hopes that one day MANA will be able to provide enough food to feed 10 million children a year. To do so, the MANA team sought to secure additional production space in Pooler, about 10 miles from the Port of Savannah.
“Our new facility will maximize our racking, be as efficient and technologically modern as possible, and bring our shipping and logistics operations to a world class level,” Moore continued. “But we also wanted to dedicate approximately 30 percent of the facility to expanding production of products that we don’t currently manufacture at our Fitzgerald facility. This facility will be unique in its proximity to the port and its ability to rapidly scale up production.”
The project’s scope of work includes extensive renovation of the existing facility and construction of three additional buildings on site. This includes bulk tank offloading, which will allow MANA to transport oil and paste from tankers to an internal tank farm. The sugar grinding room will grind granulated sugar into powdered sugar for RUTF mixes. Finally, the peanut skin room will collect peanut skins for processing and use by local farmers as soil nutrient.
The main building features an ingenious observation platform that spans the width of the main facility, allowing MANA to share its mission and the RUTF and RUSF manufacturing process with visitors to the facility. Viewers can observe all the processing stages as local Georgia peanuts arrive, are roasted, blended and packaged.
As with every food facility designed and built by AM King, sanitary design measures are paramount. This facility has many elements focused on this, including the use of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) to minimize human contact with the product. Additionally, the facility will be organized into separate processing zones for raw peanuts that go into food packs and ready-to-eat peanuts. Each of these areas has its own air pressure requirements and employees are subject to strict personal protective equipment (PPE) procedures.
Additionally, several sustainability elements will be implemented, including a solar panel infrastructure on half of the roof. MANA plans to run the building’s lighting entirely on solar power. AM King will also incorporate daylighting initiatives to bring abundant natural light into the facility.
Project Details
The design and construction of this design-build project includes a 5,600 square foot bulk unloading room, 3,200 square foot internal tank farm, 7,800 square feet of dry material handling area, 877 square foot peanut skinning house, 10,500 square feet of fresh area, 5,300 square feet of roasting room, 5,000 square feet for roasting RTE area where peanuts are ground into a paste, 676 square feet of sugar grinding room, 8,400 square feet of mixing room, 164,000 square feet of dry storage room with 42,000 pallet positions, 20,600 square feet of packing room, 11,200 square feet of future processing space and 3,200 square feet of maintenance space. 54,022 square feet of support space (including MCC/electrical room, product transfer room, offices, lab space, process area maintenance and storage) and 27 dock positions.
The two-story, 19,600-square-foot office will feature an open office area for employees with a combination of private offices and touchdown space, a large open break room, an onboarding and training room, a larger conference room, a small kitchenette, a gym and a storage area for product samples. A mezzanine level that connects to an observation walkway above the process area can also be used as a place for new employees to join in the future.
MANA Nutrition is a non-profit company that produces ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF) and other life-saving products for UNICEF, USAID, and WFP in the fight against malnutrition worldwide. MANA (Motherly Supplemented Foods) was founded 15 years ago with the dream of eliminating severe acute malnutrition by creating high-quality, low-cost therapeutic foods. At its current production site in Fitzgerald, Georgia, MANA can produce more than 120,000 pounds of RUTF per day, enough to feed 4,000 malnourished children for six weeks. Fortified with protein and vitamins, the product comes in easy-to-open food-grade packs, requires no water, cooking, or refrigeration, and boasts a two-year shelf life.
AM King is a full-service design-build firm headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina with offices in Greenville, South Carolina and Chicago, Illinois. An employee-owned company, AM King successfully delivers consistently high-quality projects throughout the United States. With an experienced team committed to protecting its clients’ assets, the company provides real estate consulting, design, construction and facilities services in key market sectors including food processing, food distribution, industrial manufacturing and corporate properties.
