Gray Celebrates Grand Opening of Cutting-Edge Manufacturing Facility for Hill's Pet Nutrition

As a subsidiary of Colgate-Palmolive, Hill’s chose Gray to design and build a state-of-the-art greenfield facility that is more than 365,000 s.f. and sits on an more than 80-acre site.

Through its family of companies, Gray provided total project services for Hill’s new wet pet food facility, from feasibility studies to a host of expert solutions including automation, sanitary process, engineering, and advanced controls. Additionally, Gray, AE, the design arm of Gray, provided the designs for this facility. This impressive project includes:

• More than 5,500 tons of steel
• 25,000 cubic yards of concrete
• More than 1,500,000 linear feet of electrical wire – good for almost 300 miles
• 365,000 gallon capacity of underground storm system

Gray Solutions, a Gray company, provided integrated controls and robotics central to the ultramodern plant’s design.

InLine Engineers, a Gray company, provided an end-to-end solution for all of the process engineering for the project. They also developed the state-of-the art, highly automated process and packing equipment throughout the facility.

AD Process Equipment, a Gray company, provided design and fabrication services for more than 25 stainless-steel platforms to house the plant’s process equipment. Each platform is custom-built for the Hill’s facility and follows AISC and OSHA guidelines. To meet stringent sanitary requirements, the platforms feature a sloped design that enables complete drainage following washdown cycles. Many of the platforms house equipment on multiple tiers, including the plant’s Clean-in-Place (CIP) system platforms, which feature a double-deck design.

Anderson Dahlen Inc., a Gray company, supported the Hill’s project by providing key equipment including pumps, valves, sanitary hoses, tubing, and fittings. The ADI team collaborated with other vendors to customize the components for proper fits into the facility layout.

“The technology and advancements of this facility set it apart as one of the high-water marks in the pet food industry. From advanced robotics to fully integrated process systems, every part of this facility is optimized to increase output and efficiency,” says Stephen Gray, president & CEO, Gray, Inc. “The relentless effort of the teams is what made this project possible. From the very beginning, Hill’s and Gray have worked hand-in-hand through the complexities of this highly technical, ultramodern facility that will now have an impact on this region and the industry for decades to come.”

The new facility creates more than 100 jobs for the community and will allow Hill’s to increase the company’s production capacity for canned pet food and provide a runway for continued expansion of its products globally.

About Gray:

With more than $1 billion in customer projects completed over the past year, Gray remains Engineering News-Record‘s No. 1 firm for the food & beverage industry for the second consecutive year. Over the past 25 years, Gray has completed more than 120 projects for its global—and growing—base of Food & Beverage customers.

Gray additionally serves domestic and international customers in the following markets: Manufacturing, Automotive, Distribution, Mission Critical, and Commercial, with nearly 30 offices across North America, Europe, and Asia, and is consistently ranked among the top industrial contractors in the U.S.

Founded in 1960, Gray has grown to encompass a complementary family of brands designed to augment and enhance each other’s specialized capabilities without gaps or redundancies. Our robust offering enables us to create one-of-a-kind solutions at the highest levels of customization, delivering unmatched precision and partnership to some of the world’s most sophisticated organizations.

For more information on Gray, visit gray.com and follow us @Gray.