US-based prepared meals supplier Freshly is planning to expand its food manufacturing operations by opening a new facility in the City of Commerce, California.

To be located in south-east Los Angeles County, the facility construction is expected to create up to 130 new jobs in the region.

The 111,260ft² USDA-approved facility will feature a dedicated refrigeration, freezer and assembly areas.

The facility is expected to come online in December, and, once operational, the company’s anticipates a 20% increase in meal production capacity.

Freshly Operation senior vice-president Richard Stoecklein said: “The new LA facility gives Freshly the opportunity to expand both its manufacturing capacity and menu variety.

“In addition to bringing new jobs to the local area, the strategic geographic location of the facility will allow Freshly to reduce the order-to-delivery cycle time to our West Coast customer base.”

The new facility will be joining Freshly’s other facilities in Linden, New Jersey; Savage, Maryland; and Phoenix, Arizona.

By next March, the company aims to begin the second phase of operations and is expected to increase order fulfilment capacity by 22%.

The decision to expand production capacity expansion follows the launch of the company’s B2B platform, Freshly for Business.

Freshly is said to be on track to ship nearly 50 million meals to more than 20,000 zip codes in the US by the end of this year.

Freshly founder and CEO Mike Wystrach said: “In 2020, Freshly hit a huge milestone delivering over one million meals weekly and opening our first facility on the West Coast will help power our continued growth.

“As more people look to balance convenience and nutrition with their meals and shift to ordering food online, this Los Angeles facility will help us continue to scale and meet growing consumer demand.”

In June 2017, Nestlé USA acquired a minority interest in Freshly, a direct-to-consumer (DTC) firm that supplies healthy prepared meals to companies in 28 states.