Family-owned Hispanic foods company Cacique Foods announced that it moved its corporate headquarters to Irving from Monrovia, California, and has opened a new dairy processing facility in Amarillo.

Cacique is a leading maker of authentic Mexican-style cheeses, cremas, chorizos, and salsas in the United States and said it is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a focus on innovation and increased production capacity.

“We’re proud of the success Cacique has seen over the past 50 years. The company started with my mother perfecting cheesemaking, while my father sold Queso Fresco door-to-door, one pound at a time, out of coolers in our family car,” Cacique CEO Gil de Cardenas said in a statement. “As we’ve grown from our humble roots, one employee at a time, Cacique Foods remains a family-owned company, and we’ve remained true to the core values my parents founded this business upon: Family. Quality, Integrity and Authenticity.”

Cacique said it hopes to deepen its roots in Texas with the opening of a new corporate headquarters in Irving, where it said it can better serve customers from a centralized location.

The company said its new headquarters office will provide an exceptional work environment for the growing Cacique family, improve efficiencies, and promote team collaboration.

Cacique also said it has also been recertified as a great workplace by the independent analysts at Great Place to Work for the sixth year in a row. The company said it earned the honor based on extensive ratings provided directly by its employees through anonymous surveys.

The company said it’s investing in the future of Mexican cuisine by providing educational opportunities for the next generation interested in food manufacturing careers in Amarillo.

A leader in a billion-dollar category, Cacique says it has at least one of its products in 80% of grocery stores across the nation.

Cacique’s new Amarillo facility is equipped to handle dairy processing, including production of the company’s authentic Mexican-style cheeses and cremas and will grow Cacique’s offerings while getting products on the shelves of even more stores nationwide.

The 200,000-square-foot facility will feature technology making it the most state-of-the-art dairy processing facility in the United States, the company said. The building is made up of seven miles of stainless-steel pipe and is the equivalent to nearly three-and-a-half football fields with production capacity to support the company’s growth plan for years to come.

Through honoring its 50th anniversary and the opening of the new location in Amarillo, Cacique is celebrating the past, present, and future of Hispanic cooking in America by helping ignite a passion for Hispanic cooking for decades to come. With $35,000 contributions to both Amtech Career Academy and Amarillo College that support food manufacturing curriculums, Cacique is hoping to spark a passion for Hispanic food among the next generation in the Amarillo community.

“The contributions from Cacique have already made an impact on our students here in Amarillo,” said Jay Barrett, Principal from AmTech Career Academy. “We are creating a curriculum that will allow students to get the hands-on experience they need to graduate and start a career in manufacturing—we hope at Cacique!”

“We’re thankful that Cacique has already invested in our community through our students,” said David Hall, Dean of Technical Education at Amarillo College. “The donation will give opportunity to even more students to have a successful career in food manufacturing.”

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Irving City Council approved an incentives package at a Thursday meeting for Kelly-Moore to shift its corporate offices to North Texas by the end of 2024.

IRVING, Texas — Kelly-Moore Paint Co. Inc. is the next California coming to "pack its bags" and move its headquarters to North Texas.

The paint manufacturer and retailer is moving its headquarters to an office building at 500 E. Carpenter Freeway in Irving. It must do so by the end of 2024 per the agreement with the city.

Irving City Council approved an incentives package at a Thursday meeting for Kelly-Moore to shift its corporate offices to North Texas, according to the city agenda. The incentives include a $75,000 economic development grant.

Kelly-Moore previously relocated its manufacturing operations to Hurst in 2017.

"Since centralizing our multiple manufacturing facilities in Hurst, Kelly-Moore has enjoyed all that the North Texas community offers, and we look forward to increasing our engagement with the local community," said Kelly-Moore CEO Charles Gassenheimer in a prepared statement.

The city agenda says Kelly-Moore must occupy at least 15,000 square feet by December 31, 2024 and create 30 new, full-time jobs with an average salary of $100,000.

Kelly-Moore has more than 15 stores in Dallas-Fort Worth alone and hundreds of others in California, Oklahoma, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Arizona, Idaho and Colorado.

The company is currently headquartered in San Carlos, Calif.

The paint company would join the likes of other big name companies choosing to make Irving's Las Colinas development home. Banking giant Wells Fargo announced in 2022 it would be building a regional campus in Irving, as well.

Chicago-based industrial equipment firm Caterpillar Inc. relocated its headquarters to Las Colinas, too.

The cybersecurity company McAfee is bringing a regional headquarters to North Texas.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company earlier this year announced plans for the new regional headquarters in Frisco.

McAfee will open offices at The Star development, where the Dallas Cowboys are headquartered, by the middle part of this year, according to a release from Frisco city officials.

More Texas headlines:

Governor Greg Abbott today touted Texas' historic leadership in the financial services industry at Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.'s ("Wells Fargo") new regional campus groundbreaking in Irving. During the ceremony, the Governor highlighted how Wells Fargo's new facility will help expand Texas' financial services workforce—which is already the largest in the nation—and encourage even more economic growth in North Texas.

"As a hub of innovation, Texas needs the support and services of businesses like Wells Fargo," said Governor Abbott. "With hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment and myriad new jobs, Wells Fargo's new campus will encourage even more economic growth in the area and keep Texas home to our nation's largest financial services workforce. More than 3,000 workers are expected to report to this facility upon its completion, and I thank the Irving City Council and Mayor Stopfer for their hard work in bringing such a great company to this wonderful city. I also thank Wells Fargo and President and CEO Scharf for their continued investment in Texas and the great people of Irving. Working together, we are underwriting the Texas of tomorrow."

The Governor was joined at the groundbreaking by Irving Mayor Rick Stopfer, Wells Fargo President and CEO Charlie Scharf, Irving-Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Beth Bowman, and KDC Real Estate Development and Investments CEO Steve Van Amburgh. During the ceremony, Governor Abbott presented a proclamation to President and CEO Scharf commemorating the new facility and Wells Fargo's investment in the Irving community and the people of Texas.

Last October, Governor Abbott announced that Wells Fargo would create a new regional campus in Irving. The project will create 650 new jobs and $455 million in capital investment for the region. A Texas Enterprise Fund grant of just over $5 million has been extended to Wells Fargo.

A national paint company that got its start in the San Francisco area is betting its future on Texas.

Kelly-Moore Paint Co. is moving its headquarters from California to Las Colinas.

Irving’s city council voted Thursday night to give the company financial incentives to support the location of its new office on Carpenter Freeway.

The 76-year-old paint company is just the latest California business headed to Texas.

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The firm for decades has been based in San Carlos, south of San Francisco, but opened a North Texas manufacturing plant more than five years ago in Hurst.

“The engine of our business is our Hurst manufacturing plant,” CEO Charles Gassenheimer said. “It made sense to me to put our corporate headquarters close to our manufacturing facility.

“With this Texas repositioning, it opens up huge markets and potential for growth.”

Kelly-Moore Paint got its start in 1946 when William H. Kelly and William E. Moore opened their paint business in the San Francisco area.

The company now sells its products out of 157 stores in California, Nevada, Oklahoma and Texas.

“Dallas is sort of the Southwest hub of our business,” Gassenheimer said. “If you look at our store footprint, we have about 100 stores in Northern California and about 57 in the Greater Dallas area down to Austin and up through Oklahoma.”

He said the headquarters move to Las Colinas doesn’t mean Kelly-Moore is turning its back on the firm’s longtime locations

“Northern California is an incredibly important market for us,” Gassenheimer said. “We are going to be growing in the state of Texas.”

He sees Texas as the jumping-off point to spread through the eastern half of the country.

“It opens up the East Coast, which, it goes without saying, is a huge potential market opportunity for us,” Gassenheimer said. “By putting the headquarters right in the center of the country it allows us to open up our prospective vision.”

With about $400 million a year in annual sales and a workforce of more than 1,200, Kelly-Moore is still a fraction of the size of larger paint firms, including Sherwin-Williams with more than $22 billion in revenues and Benjamin Moore with more than $1 billion in sales.

“This is a super-regional brand,” Gassenheimer said. “We have never had the opportunity to widen out the aperture on our lens.

“What I really want to try to accomplish is increase our dealer network,” he said. “Everybody needs paint at some point in their life.”

Kelly-Moore will have a higher profile in North Texas. The company will be one of the sponsors of the upcoming AT&T Byron Nelson Golf Tournament.

Gassenheimer is managing partner of the group that bought Kelly-Moore from family members in 2022. His goal is to grow the revenues from the $800 million to $1 billion level.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to buy and own such an iconic brand,” he said.

Kelly-Moore looked at office locations throughout North Texas, including downtown Dallas, before picking a building at 500 E. John Carpenter Freeway in Irving. Proximity to the airport was a factor in the location.

“The DFW Airport is one of the most convenient in the world to get to anywhere,” he said. “Being only 15 to 20 minutes out to the plant was important.”

The company is leasing 15,000 square feet in the office property across the freeway from the Las Colinas Urban Center. Kelly-Moore will have exterior signage on the property, which also houses offices for franchise firm Neighborly Brands.

“We’re over 80% leased,” said Harry Lake of building owner Koa Partners. “We really only have one block of space available.”

Irving’s city council voted to give Kelly-Moore an economic development grant of $75,000 for the company to “employ 30 new, full-time jobs with an average annual salary of $100,000.”

Gassenheimer said the company has already moved about two dozen workers in its accounting and finance operations to the area and plans to grow the workforce. “We are going to be hiring, particularly in the area of marketing.”

Kelly-Moore joins a long list of corporate headquarters based in Las Colinas, which has more employees than downtown Dallas. More than 150,000 people worked in the development at last count.

Irving has added more than 21,000 jobs in the last five years, according to the Irving-Las Colinas Chamber of Commerce.

Las Colinas’ most recent headquarters move was for industrial equipment firm Caterpillar, which relocated from Chicago.

The development is now home to about a half dozen Fortune 500 companies.

Green Acres Nursery & Supply is making a big leap from its home state of California into Texas with its first store in Irving. More stores are in the works.

The indoor and outdoor retail location is 120,000 square feet inside the fence and includes a 13,000-square-foot annuals and perennials greenhouse, a 6,300-square-foot greenhouse for houseplants and a 30,000-square-foot store with aisles of everything from patio furniture, pottery, décor and grills to irrigation and drainage supplies, plant foods and specialty soils.

Green Acres, which opened its store in Irving two weeks ago, is the latest retailer looking for growth in Dallas-Fort Worth with its fast-rising population. The company also believes it has an approach that sets it apart from existing nursery and garden retailers.

“This is a dynamic market, and there’s nothing like Green Acres here now. We’re creating an experience that doesn’t exist here,” said Steve Gill, CEO of Green Acres in Texas. “We try to be the Bass Pro Shops or Buc-ee’s of garden centers.”

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The Irving store faces the north side of Interstate 635 at Belt Line Road next to the Cypress Waters development. A planting bar is being added where customers can create a pot for a gift or have an employee do it. Outdoor grilling brands include Ooni pizza ovens and Old Country BBQ Pits from Laredo.

Green Acres plans to open two more stores in the spring and fall of 2024 and a fourth in spring 2025, said Ashley Rossi, a co-owner who is focused on Green Acres’ business development.

The company has purchased sites in Southlake at 1963 W. Southlake Blvd. and in Frisco at Wade Boulevard and Nancy Jane Lane across from the Frisco Athletic Center.

Melissa is on the company’s radar, but a deal hasn’t closed yet, Rossi said.

“We’ve run into H-E-B a few times as we’ve looked for locations,” she said, referring to the San Antonio-based supermarket retailer’s North Texas expansion.

North Richland Hills-based Calloway’s Nursery and smaller local businesses, such as Ruibal’s Plants of Texas, North Haven Gardens and Nicholson-Hardie have dominated the D-FW market for years.

Calloway’s, which had sales last year of more than $100 million, has 22 locations in North Texas and five in the Houston market, and is about to open its first Austin-area store, in Cedar Park.

“It’s no secret that D-FW is one of the strongest retail markets, and in our industry, it’s a highly competitive market. That challenges us to do better for our customers,” Jennifer Hatalski, vice president of marketing at Calloway’s.

Founded in Fort Worth 36 years ago, Calloway’s boasts of having more Texas-certified nursery professionals than any other nursery in the state.

Calloway’s opens one or two stores a year, Hatalkski said. Since 2021, it has opened two new locations inside Dallas city limits and one in Prosper. It also purchased a nursery in Galveston from retiring owners.

Big box retailers Home Depot, Lowe’s and Walmart — which mostly treat gardening as a seasonal business — are well represented in the market. Tractor Supply Co. has circled D-FW in rural areas and has made its way into suburbia with stores in Mesquite, Wylie and McKinney.

Green Acres, which operates seven stores in California and plant farms in California and Tyler, has annual sales that exceed $100 million, Gill said.

“We’re bigger than Calloway’s and are the second-largest independent nursery in the U.S.,” he said.

The $42 billion-a-year U.S. nursery and garden retail category is fragmented with more than 22,500 mostly family-owned and operated businesses, according to IBISWorld. The largest independently owned nursery is Glendora, Calif.-based Armstrong Garden Centers, which operates 31 stores in California.

“We have a higher quality and breadth of product and compete on pricing with the big-box retailers and other independent nurseries,” Gill said.

Steve Gill is a co-owner of the business, which was founded in 2003 by his brother, Mark Gill and his children Travis and Rossi, who live in California.

Steve Gill, who is the former CEO of Talenti gelato, lives in Dallas as do two more owners, a silent investor and Josh Hochschuler, Talenti’s founder. Hochschuler founded Talenti in Dallas in 2003 and shifted from a storefront to a wholesale brand sold to restaurants and in grocery stores. Gill helped to catapult Talenti to an over $120 million-a-year brand when it was sold to Unilever in 2014.

The Green Acres store in Irving has about 100 employees, with several coming from Strong’s Nursery and Garden Center in Carrollton, whose owners are retiring.

“We’re not a seasonal business,” Rossi said. “We have the people and know-how to treat pests, winterize and prepare a garden for spring. We consider this a 365-days-a-year business.”

Asked if people ever serenade store employees with the memorable tune from Green Acres, the television sitcom from the 1960s, Rossi said yes — and that it’s welcomed. “We try to be a happy place.”

Twitter: @MariaHalkias

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