Spiceology opens new production facility in Playfair Commerce Park

Spiceology has opened a new production facility at Playfair Commerce Park to increase the efficiency and volume of its processing operations.

The Spokane-based spice and rub company opened the 25,000-square-foot production facility last month in Playfair 3 at 2700 E. Ferry Ave.

“When we first secured (the space) in November, you walked in and it felt pretty daunting. It’s just this ginormous space,” Spiceology CEO Chip Overstreet said. “Now, we’ve got the racking all the way up to the ceiling. We’ve got the offices and the automation. I think the showpiece of the space is the 115-foot automation line. It’s just fun to watch.”

The new facility brings process automation to the company’s blends, which are formulated and packaged into containers with the company’s trademarked “Periodic Table of Flavor” packaging.

The automation line allows the company to fill 60 spice jars per minute. Previously, the company’s employees were filling the spice jars by hand, Overstreet said.

“The new automation certainly has taken a huge load off, and the productivity and output is more than twofold what it was last year,” Overstreet said.

The company, founded in 2013 by executive chef Pete Taylor and food blogger Heather Scholten of Farmgirl Gourmet, sells more than 300 spices, salts, blends, herbs, and fruit and vegetable powders.

Not all of the company’s products will make it to the automation line. Some spice jars will continue to be filled by hand, and the company procured some semi-automation equipment to speed up that process, Overstreet said.

Spiceology will continue to have operations at 715 E. Sprague Ave., which is home to its sales, marketing and administration departments.

The company considered several potential locations for its new production facility, including a vacant building previously occupied by Albertson’s near 37th Avenue and Grand Boulevard on the South Hill.

“We thought it would be fun to put Spiceology into that facility. But in the end, we realized having a production facility with character is far less important than having a production facility that is just designed and optimized for scale,” Overstreet said. “What we found at Playfair is a brand new, state-of-the-art facility that allowed us to come in, configure it exactly how we needed, and get up and running as quickly as possible with room to expand.”

The privately held spice company, which has more than 100 employees, has grown steadily by creating recipes and how-to videos for customers as well as collaborating with chefs and food influencers on new product lines.

Spiceology was named to Inc. Magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the nation in 2020. The company secured $4.7 million in Series A funding in September, led by grocery and retail executive Ty Bennett and with participation by Kickstart Funds III and IV, a group of angel investors and the Cowles Co., which publishes The Spokesman-Review.

“It’s safe to say the business is very strong. We’ve had significant growth in the last four years,” Overstreet said, adding the company is projecting strong sales growth this year. “The brand continues to get stronger. Some of the things that are coming in the next two, three, four and five months are just going be a lot of fun.”