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Echo Lake Foods has its official start locally

Jerry Warntjes (left), vice president and general manager of Echo Lake Foods, speaks prior to a ribbon cutting ceremony at the company’s Huntington plant.
Jerry Warntjes (left), vice president and general manager of Echo Lake Foods, speaks prior to a ribbon cutting ceremony at the company’s Huntington plant. Photo by Cindy Klepper.

A Wisconsin-based company announced Thursday, Sept. 11, that it has officially begun operations in Huntington.

Echo Lake Foods, which produces egg products and breakfast entrees, moved into the former Good Humor-Breyers building on West State Street about nine months after a January 2013 fire devastated its plant in Burlington, WI, said Jerry Warntjes, Echo Lake's vice president and general manager.

Warntjes and Echo Lake were welcomed to Huntington on Sept. 11 by Indiana Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann and local officials, who joined in a ribbon cutting ceremony for the plant.
The Echo Lake Huntington plant currently has more than 40 full-time employees and is breaking about 1.5 million eggs a day, Warntjes said. He said the plant will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and will have about 100 employees by 2015. Hiring for the additional positions will begin later this year through the Huntington WorkOne Center.

Echo Lake was founded in 1941 as a family-owned business, Ellspermann noted.

Initially an egg delivery business, it transitioned to producing precooked egg patties and omelets. Today, Echo Lake sells egg products and more than 200 retail breakfast items, including frozen French toast, pancakes, waffles and dinner rolls.

The products are sold in grocery stores nationwide. The company also serves schools, quick service restaurants, buffets, component manufacturing, sandwich building, industrial catering and mass institutional feeding needs.

Echo Lake also operates production facilities in Burlington and Franksville, WI, and Owensboro, KY.

The building now occupied by Echo Lake had housed dairy and ice cream facilities for more than 100 years, Huntington Mayor Brooks Fetters said.

That ended when Good Humor-Breyers announced in July 2013 that it would close its Huntington plant, which employed about 140 people, to reduce its manufacturing capacity.

Fetters said he put his prayer team into action immediately after that announcement. Shortly after that, he made connections with Warntjes and Echo Lake Foods.

"Truly, I believe this was an answer to a prayer," Fetters said.

"I was driving through Ohio looking for a facility," Warntjes said, when he learned about the empty plant in Huntington. "I didn't even know Huntington existed."

Nine months after the January 2013 fire, he said, he learned he could relocate in Huntington.

Huntington County Economic Development worked with Echo Lake, and both the city of Huntington and Huntington County provided incentives for the company. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation is providing tax credits and training grants conditional on the company's hiring Indiana residents.

Echo Lake is investing $19.88 million to purchase, renovate and equip the 110,000-square-foot facility at 435 W. State St.

When the plant is fully operational in 2015, it will run six production lines for egg products using Indiana eggs.

Complete caption: Jerry Warntjes (left), vice president and general manager of Echo Lake Foods, speaks prior to a ribbon cutting ceremony at the company's Huntington plant. With him are Indiana Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann (center) and Huntington Mayor Brooks Fetters. Echo Lake Foods purchased the former Good Humor-Breyers building on West State Street.