Campbell’s to make room for snacks business in Camden

M’m! M’m! Bigger.

Camden-based Campbell Soup Company announced Wednesday it is expanding to accommodate the consolidation of its snacks businesses.

The company said it will invest about $50 million over the next three years to construct new buildings to accommodate more than 1,600 employees.

Campbell’s President and CEO Mark Clouse has been looking to consolidate its snacks business since it bought Snyder’s-Lance Inc. in 2018.

“We just think it’s a tremendous opportunity to bring the energy and the culture to enable people to have a broader set of options for career planning,” he said.

Campbell’s Snacks includes Cape Cod and Kettle brand potato chips in its portfolio, along with pretzels by Snyder’s of Hanover and Pepperidge Farms, makers of the Goldfish crackers.

The business is currently split between New Jersey, Charlotte, N.C., and Norwalk, Conn. The company expects to save up to $10 million a year by fiscal year 2026, some of which will be reinvested.

Clouse said other operations, like manufacturing, will remain in Connecticut and North Carolina. It will be headquarter functions, such as marketing, finance, and human resources, that will be transferred to the Garden State. He adds no jobs will be cut in the process and hopes current employees will take advantage of the relocation package, if they are eligible for it.

“We’re excited about this and [we’re] certainly trying to be as enticing as we can to bring our folks from those locations to our new office,” Clouse said.

The company is expected to start construction in March. Employees will start to relocate to Camden later this year.

The last major expansion of Campbell’s headquarters was completed in 2010. It invested up to $93 million dollars in the project at the time, which included buying property for future use.