KaTom ready to expand, announces 100 more jobs

Kodak company KaTom Restaurant Supply plans to add 100 jobs along with a 40,000-square-foot expansion, fueled by $12.6 million in loans, the firm announced. Construction is expected to start within two months and be finished in late 2020.

“2019 will be our best year ever,” Patricia Bible, KaTom founder, president and CEO, said in a news release. “And some of what this expansion will allow us to do will lead to more record-setting years.”

KaTom, which started in a garage, now does $200 million a year in business — selling restaurant equipment nationwide and from its Kodak retail store, the news release said. Bible runs it with her children.

“KaTom is truly a home-grown Tennessee business,” Jim Tracy, state director of USDA Rural Development, said in the announcement. “That’s the kind of company we love to see succeed, plus they hire employees from counties across the area.”

Expansion plans call for a test kitchen where chefs can try equipment before buying, an online video production facility, a food service area, more office space and a greatly enlarged warehouse.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is providing $10 million, with an additional $2.6 million from Community Trust Bank, the news release said.

Source: Knoxville News Sentinel

The East Tennessee Economic Development Agency markets and recruits business for the 15 counties in the greater Knoxville-Oak Ridge region of East Tennessee. Visit www.eteda.org

 

Published September 20, 2019