Crown West Realty

Manufacturer of pizza and bakery equipment seeking to consolidate and expand

By Andrea Worley
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS

Lloyd Industries Inc., of Spokane, plans to move its two plants here and consolidate them into one much larger facility at the Spokane Business & Industrial Park.

The pizza and bakery equipment manufacturer will move out of its two facilities at 2825 N. Hogan and 3808 E. Queen, both located on Spokane’s North Side. Together, the two buildings have a total of 18,000 square feet of floor space, while the new facility will have 40,000 square feet of space, says John Crow, company president. Crow expects that the company will make the move in the next couple of weeks.

Besides consolidating the company, the move is being made to allow it to grow and expand, Crow says. He says it’s difficult running two facilities located three miles apart. The business has operated at the Hogan location for five years and at the Queen location for three years.

After the move, Crow hopes the company’s current $3 million in annual revenues will jump 30 percent to 40 percent a year over the next four or five years. The move also will allow the manufacturer to add another production shift. In addition to the current day shift, Crow plans to add a night shift, and add five to 10 employees in all to its staff of 25. The new hires will include a Web designer, machine programmer, production planner, and more machine operators for the night shift.

The company makes baking equipment, including pizza pans, pizza cutters and knives, pans for cheesecakes and desserts, and other baking tools and pizza utensils, for pizza restaurants and commercial bakeries. Among its clients are Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Papa John’s, and large commercial cheesecake manufacturers, Crow says.

“Every Domino’s in the world has some of our stuff,” he says.

Lloyd Industries also makes equipment for the cafes located in Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Costco stores, Crow says, and operates two e-commerce Web sites: www.pizzatools.com and www.bakingtools.com.

Crow says the company sells its products worldwide, including to about 45 of the top 100 pizza franchises, as well as to about 7,000 independent restaurants.

Lloyd Industries, owned by Crow and his son, Rob Crow, was established in 1986 in the San Diego area, and moved to Spokane in 1993.