Country Oven Bakery to invest $224,000,000 in Bowling Green facility expansion

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – A major investment is coming to a large employer in Bowling Green soon.

The Country Oven Bakery is responsible for producing cakes, cookies, breads and other products for the Kroger grocery chain and is planning on spending $224,000,000 to expand its current facility on Pioneer drive. As Bowling Green and Warren County have expanded many businesses have invested into calling the community their home, but few have invested such a large sum of money into an investment.

“It would be one of the larger investments. I mean, if you look over the last decade, 15 years, it’d be in the top 10, 15% of investments by manufacturing companies in our area,” said Ron Bunch, CEO of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce.

The investment will have a reverberating effect as well as other sectors of the Bowling Green economy will feel a positive impact. Over time, the investment of a few hundred million dollars could create billions more further down the line.

“So we actually calculate the economic impact of these projects very early in our conversations with them. And so, a $200 million investment translates into billions of dollars over the decade time span that we look at,” Bunch said.

That impact comes through purchases need to help build the expansion, and also from future needs the business will need to acquire. The investment will also impact jobs within the community as they estimate for every one manufacturing job created it supports two and a half non-manufacturing jobs.

The Country Oven Bakery has called Bowling Green home since 1981 and is excited to continue to show their commitment to the community.