Tampa in the running for Trader Joe's commercial bakery
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 29, 2015

A commercial wholesale bakery that supplies cult favorite grocer Trader Joe's could land in Tampa.

The bakery is scouting sites "from Jacksonville to Tampa," a commercial real estate broker representing the company told the Daytona News-Journal.

John Wanamaker of Coldwell Banker Commercial AI Group told the News-Journal that he "is representing a supplier of baked goods for Trader Joe's that is looking for a 'moderate'-size site." The bakery would employ up to 50, according to the News-Journal.

A call to Wanamaker was pending return Wednesday.

Volusia County, where Wanamaker is also chairman of the economic development corporation, seems like a logical fit for such a facility. After expanding its retail footprint in Florida, Trader Joe's put a distribution center near Daytona Beach, after considering sites in Southeast Georgia and Northeast Florida.

It's already identified Volusia County as a good fit for its supply chain. That distribution center took millions of dollars of incentives from city and county governments.

Wanamaker tells the News-Journal that while four sites in Volusia County are under consideration, none are a done deal, and sites throughout the state are in the running. But the synergy between suppliers for Trader Joe's and its distribution center makes Volusia seem like an obvious choice - and raise the question as to whether the other sites are being used for leverage if and when the bakery applies for economic development incentives in Volusia.

But there are factors beyond incentives in deals like these, especially available workforce and logistics. Jacksonville is known for its manufacturing workforce.

Sites along the Interstate 4 corridor can reach stores from Atlanta to Miami within eight hours - and there are a number of warehouses under construction in Polk County that could be a good fit for the bakery, especially if it wants to move quickly.

Ashley Gurbal Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.