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Tarboro Hillshire plant to expand, add jobs

INTRO – A Tarboro bakery operation has announced expansion plans, bringing 98 new jobs to the region. George Olsen has more.

The Governor’s Office has announced that Hillshire Brands Company will expand its bakery operations in Tarboro, adding 98 jobs over the next three years. The company says it will invest $28.4 million to upgrade and improve the facility over that period. The facility produces Hillshire’s Sara Lee brand of baked goods. The Tarboro Hillshire facility opened in 2000 and currently employs a workforce of 687. The additional jobs will add nearly $3 million to Hillshire’s annual payroll. Hillshire is eligible for a performance based grant of up to $300,000 from the One North Carolina Fund and the town of Tarboro. I’m George Olsen.

George Olsen is a 1977 Havelock High School graduate. He received his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1982 where he got his first taste of non-commercial radio working for their student station WUSC. After graduation he worked about five years in commercial radio before coming to work at Public Radio East where he has remained since outside of a nearly 3-year stint as jazz and operations coordinator at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1990s. On his return to eastern North Carolina he hosted classical music for Public Radio East before moving into the Morning Edition host position and now can be heard on All Things Considered. He also hosts and produces The Sound, five hours of Americana, Roots Rock and Contemporary Folk weekday evenings on PRE Public Radio East News & Ideas, and is a news and feature producer for Public Radio East.