The end of an Era Auction of Potato Chips Processing Lines and Packaging Machinery from Jays Foods on January 24



Exactly a week from today, eighty years of potato chip manufacturing on Chicago's south side will come to a close with the public auction sale of equipment from Jays Foods manufacturing headquarters on East 99th Street. This announcement follows the bankruptcy court's acceptance of a $24.8 million bulk sale of the majority of the firms assets to another party.

The Jays brand has always been considered a quality snack product throughout Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Minnesota and Iowa. Unfortunately, even with a 60 percent market share in the ready-to-eat popcorn category in these states, Jays flagship manufacturing plant could not offset the rising costs of cooking oils, raw materials, energy and labor costs.

The equipment auction on Thursday, January 24, 2008, is being conducted by Rabin Worldwide (http://www.rabin.com) of San Francisco and is open to the public . The auction will include batch frying systems utilized to make the Krunchers kettle style chips, four continuous fry lines which produced the bulk of Jays regular & barbeque potato chips, two popcorn systems which were recently producing the famous O-Ke-Doke popcorn, as well as 18 Ishida packaging machines.

More information on the auction (http://www.potatopro.com/newsletters/20080115.htm)





The end of an Era Auction of Potato Chips Processing Lines and Packaging Machinery from Jays Foods on January 24