IBJNews

Really Cool Foods plant on auction block

Back to TopCommentsE-mailPrint

An organic food company that closed its eastern Indiana preparations center late last year is attempting to sell the 78,000-square-foot facility as part of a bankruptcy reorganization.

RCF Kitchens Indiana LLC, better known as Really Cool Foods, employed 131 people at the Cambridge City plant, far short of 1,000 workers the company said it planned to hire when it moved from New York to Indiana in 2008.

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy the company filed in Indianapolis on Wednesday lists assets of $1 million to $10 million and liabilities of $10 million to $50 million.

To help pay creditors, Really Cool Foods has identified a buyer that has offered to pay $13 million for its assets, which include the 78,000-square-foot facility the company built.

The interested purchaser is Sugar Creek Packing Co. of Washington Court House, Ohio, according to court documents. Founded in 1966, the company also has locations in Cincinnati, Dayton and Frontenac, Kan.

A Sugar Creek executive declined to comment on the company’s interest in the building.

As part of the bankruptcy, though, Really Cool Foods must allow bidding on the building through an auction to identify other potential buyers. Sugar Creek will receive a “breakup fee” if it is not the successful bidder.

Really Cool Foods hopes the sale will be complete by Oct. 20. The company is represented by Jeff Hokanson of the local office of Cincinnati-based Frost Brown Todd LLC.

“In order to avoid the loss of the buyer’s offer and to maximize the benefit to the debtor’s creditors and bankruptcy estate,” he said in the filing, “it is important that the debtor proceed with the sale process as quickly as possible.”

Really Cool Foods was founded in 2005, and three years later began manufacturing natural and organic food products, mainly pre-packaged, microwave-ready entrees and side dishes.

But sales failed to meet expectations, and the plant closed in November. The company began searching for a buyer last year after lenders were unwilling to provide additional financing to keep the business operating, according to court documents.

Really Cool Foods had planned to hire 1,000 workers and invest $100 million in operations in a five- to seven-year period. The company spent about $24 million to build its Wayne County plant.


 

ADVERTISEMENT

  • FYI
    FYI - On top of that,I think you will find Mr.RCF is an Obama supporter?
  • Really Cool, not
    Really Cools foods failed to hire, failed to market, and even failed to keep its production waste system functioning, throwing a cost burden on Cambridge City, which had to keep replacing system components because RCF plugged up the system. And to add insult to injury, Mr RCF "bought" the old Reid Hospital in Richmond, stripped it, and has now left it to rot as a teardown by the city. If there are any clawback provisons for what Richmond and Cambridge City gave the RCF carpetbaggers, I hope they can be exercised.

    Post a comment to this story

    COMMENTS POLICY
    We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, abusive, or hateful.
     
    You are legally responsible for what you post and your anonymity is not guaranteed.
     
    Posts that insult, defame, threaten, harass or abuse other readers or people mentioned in IBJ editorial content are also subject to removal. Please respect the privacy of individuals and refrain from posting personal information.
     
    No solicitations, spamming or advertisements are allowed. Readers may post links to other informational websites that are relevant to the topic at hand, but please do not link to objectionable material.
     
    We may remove messages that are unrelated to the topic, encourage illegal activity, use all capital letters or are unreadable.
     

    Messages that are flagged by readers as objectionable will be reviewed and may or may not be removed. Please do not flag a post simply because you disagree with it.

    Sponsored by
    ADVERTISEMENT

    facebook - twitter on Facebook & Twitter

    Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ on Facebook:
    Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ's Tweets on these topics:
     
    Subscribe to IBJ
    1. Doug Henning!

    2. These guy were thugs — they grew up in freaking Haughville! Smh, sigh. If the mayor needs/wants "quality" Black Hoosiers who are NOT corrupt, give me a call — I know plenty. Land bank info here - http://www.kubepharm.com/indylandbank/IndyLandBank.html

    3. Magician and illusionist!

    4. The basic idea of nice apartments with parking and retail is a good one, but this design seems overwhelmingly big/tall for Broad Ripple. The size could be disguised a bit with lots of big trees/landscaping, but the complex is too massive to blend in easily. That section of canal between College and Westfield will also need to be upgraded on both sides. Nice apartments facing onto a nice promenade with shade trees/plantings could bring together the canal towpath/Monon recreation, the outdoor seating at existing restaurants, and this project into something that upgrades the whole area. A plan for the whole stretch makes more sense than facing nice new housing onto what looks like a ditch. Is there a plan? Does the public have input? Who pays? The apartment idea seems to be reasonable, but Whole Foods is not a good idea for appropriate retail. Besides the store being physically too big, there are already Fresh Market at 54xCollege and Whole Foods in Nora for fancy groceries. Good Earth and Kroger are within walking distance of the Shell site. There are at least 7 grocery stores within a safe bike ride. Whole Foods would add nothing but traffic congestion. This design is on the right track, but there needs to be more work done to ensure that it blends in with and enhances the existing community. A project that large will set a tone for that whole part of town. It could be a real asset, but only if done right.

    5. I did not move to Zionsville to live in Carmel. This and the subsequent developments to follow will ensure a vanilla uniformity of strip malls and apartment buildings as we seek to bring our town down to the least common denominator. We were warned before recent elections that pro-development council members would make sure their friends (landowners and developers) would be able to make their millions off of the exploitation of Zionsville. Why in God's name would we sell out the best preserved small town in the State of Indiana?

    ADVERTISEMENT