FRITO LAY TO BUILD IN ARKANSAS

JONESBORO, Ark. -- Frito Lay Inc., a giant in the snack chip industry, will build a 400,000-square-foot, $85 million manufacturing facility in Northeast Arkansas.

Frito Lay will be the fourth major company to locate in the 800-acre Craighead Technology Park at Jonesboro, where company and city officials will gather at 10:30 a.m. today for a groundbreaking ceremony.

Frito Lay selected the Jonesboro site following a 10-month site search which included four Southeast Missouri communities -- Cape Girardeau, New Madrid, Sikeston and Malden -- West Tennessee and North Mississippi.

The search narrowed to Sikeston, Malden and Jonesboro before the final selection was made.

"Cape Girardeau was eliminated early," said Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association. Frito Lay cited one primary reason for eliminating Cape Girardeau early.

"They felt we were too far north and out of their target area," said Robinson. "We would also have to build a wastewater treatment facility. But that's a necessity for any of the communities involved."

Sikeston and Malden were in the running until two months ago.

"We were disappointed, but we wish the company well at Jonesboro," said Bill Green, director of economic development at Sikeston. "Frito Lay would have provided up to 800 good jobs here."

Production at the Jonesboro plant is expected to start within a year.

The company is expected to hire between 300 and 400 employees during the first two years of operation, with up to 800 in six years.

Frito Lay workers, officials say, earn about $7 an hour, not including benefits.

Details of the new industry are sketchy until today's groundbreaking. Jonesboro officials have been sworn to secrecy regarding the new industry.

Jonesboro approved more than $200 million in industrial development revenue bonds recently for a then-unnamed industry.

In addition, another $8 million will be spent for a new wastewater treatment plant to handle the plant's waste.

The city is also extending a railroad a half mile, and Craighead County is doing the site's initial dirt and road work.

Frito Lay is the nation's leader in the manufacture of snack chips. The food company, headquartered in Plano, Texas, is owned by Pepsico Inc., based in Purchase, N.Y.

Frito Lay recently announced that it was expanding its national operation by purchasing Eagle Snack manufacturing plants at Robertsonville, N.C.; Fayetteville, Tenn.; Visalia, Calif., and York, Pa. Anheuser-Busch, which owned Eagle Snack, announced recently that it was discontinuing the food snack business.

Henry Jones, president of the Jonesboro Chamber of Commerce, said Frito Lay would be joining some other big companies in Craighead Park: Trailmobile, which produces tractor-trailers, employs more than 400 people; Armour Swift Echridge employs 250 and Crane Kemlight employs aboaut 100.

Another new industry will be in the park within a few weeks, said Jones. "Trinity Lighting, which produces lamps, will move into a new facility there," he said. Trinity employs about 50.

Jonesboro has been one of the fastest growing Northern Arkansas cities over the past decade and a half.

"We were at 32,000 during the 1980 census," said Jones. "The 1990 census was 50,000, and we're probably at 52,000 to 53,000 now."

The city also has five industrial parks, three in the city limits.