Duke Food Productions to establish corporate HQ at Falls Park Place - Upstate Business Journal
Duke Food Productions, an industrial food manufacturer of branded and private label brands, is returning to its roots by establishing its company headquarters in downtown Greenville.
The offices, which are under construction, will take up 12,000 square feet of space on the third and fourth floors of the new Falls Park Place building at 600 S. Main St. The company is moving its headquarters from Easley.
Initially, 25 to 30 corporate employees will move to the new Greenville headquarters, which is slated to open in January 2017, Smart said.
Duke will share the building with Lululemon, Happy + Hale and Table 301 Restaurant Group’s latest concept Jianna, as well as six luxury apartments.
The headquarters will be a stone’s throw away from the site where the company’s story began. In 1917, Eugenia Duke began selling her signature spread sandwiches up and down Main Street to local drug stores, textile mills and World War I soldiers stationed at Camp Sevier.
Made with her family’s homemade recipe – what we now know as Duke’s mayonnaise – the spreads were an instant hit. In the spring of 1919, Eugenia Duke sold more than 10,000 sandwiches in one day. She eventually established a manufacturing factory at the site where the Wyche Pavilion stands now.
While Eugenia Duke sold her original mayonnaise recipe to C.F. Sauer in 1929, her sandwich business continued to flourish in Greenville, eventually being taken over by the Smart family in 1964.
Today, the Duke brand includes Duke Sandwich Company, which has two local retail sandwich locations, and Duke Food Productions. Both are independent corporations owned by the Smart family.
“Eugenia Duke was a true pioneer,” Smart said. “To think that she established a business that continues to thrive today at a time when she didn’t even have the right to vote is mind-boggling to me. It was important to us to return our company to its roots and honor Eugenia’s gift to this city.”
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