Dillons, the grocery supermarket chain based in Hutchinson, Kansas, is spending $2.3 million to renovate banana-ripening rooms at its Hutchinson “fresh foods” warehouse on East Fourth Avenue. The three-phase project to replace a dozen ripening rooms, built in 1984, started with demolition four weeks ago. Bananas, noted Dillons spokesperson, Sheila Lowrie, seem to be a staple on most customers shopping lists.
With the remodel, the number of rooms will drop to eight, but they will add an extra tier of storage in the 18-foot high warehouse, offering 20 percent more overall storage capacity, said Kevin Whitehead, Senior Supply Manager for Dillons Logistics, who oversees the Dillons warehouses in Hutchinson and Goddard.
In addition, upgraded equipment will allow greater capability to control the banana ripening process.
“Overall this renovation project enables Dillons to deliver a greater number of bananas with improved quality through our distribution center and into our stores,” Lowrie said.
The warehouse delivers bananas to Dillons, Gerber and Baker stores in Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri.
They will do the project in phases because the warehouse still has to continue its ripening and distribution process to supply stores during the construction. They ripen only bananas in the rooms.
“We’ll start with four rooms and replace them with three,” Whitehead said.
Officials are targeting an April completion.
