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This is a story about Goldfish.
You know, those baked but not fried Goldfish.
Well, it seems that Pepperidge Farm needs more space to make those cheesy snacks that smile back. So it is planning to invest $44 million and add jobs as it expands its plant near Richmond, in Cache Valley.
The investment will be used to reconfigure the facility and add a third Goldfish production line, said manager Vic Mahoney.
"We have Goldfish lines at our other biscuit plants within the Pepperidge Farm system, and they're all running at or near capacity," he said.
Pepperidge Farm, a division of Campbell's Soup, wants to break ground on the expansion in April and hopes to complete the project by mid-2014.
The new line will boost production by around 30 million pounds a year, doubling the poundage of Goldfish produced. And that means the plant, which has been in operation for 38 years, will be adding as many as 54 workers to make the crackers that Pepperidge Farm's advertising once boasted are made with real cheese, even though they look like "fishies."
There already are 385 workers, Mahoney said.
Pepperidge Farm also produces Goldfish at its plants in Denver, Pa., and Willard, Ohio.
The Utah facility was "competing with other Pepperidge Farm plants for the new Goldfish line," said Cache County Executive Lynn Lemon. "We were fortunate that the decision was made that it would be built here."
Lemon said that Cache County is working to ease the property tax increase that will result with the expansion. "We want to do all we can. We all like Goldfish."
Just don't expect to be hearing that catchy Goldfish advertising jingle in conjunction with the expansion.
"We stopped using that jingle a couple of years ago," said Pepperidge Farm spokeswoman Geri Allen. "But you never know, we may bring it back someday."
steve@sltrib.comTwitter: OberbeckBiz