KTKA

A big crowd came out Wednesday for the ceremonial ground breaking for U.S. Foodservice, which means more jobs. "We are going to be doubling our freezer capacity as well as expanding our dock area, and it will be twice the dock area that we currently have, and again that will allow us to long term grow this business by 50 to 60 percent over where it is now," District President of U.S. Foodservice, Gary Meyer, said.

U.S. Foodservice is right outside of the Topeka city limits. Go Topeka, along with the Chamber of Commerce, have been negotiating to keep the company in Kansas. "It also means net additional revenue to our governments, to our city, to our county and our school system, 2.5 million dollars over the next 10 years, roughly 250 thousand dollars alone each year for the next ten years just from this company's operations, or their employees," Doug Kinsinger with the Topeka Chamber of Commerce said.

Part of the negotiations to get US Foodservice to stay was a sales tax incentive up to one million dollars to keep all of their current employees, and add 25 new jobs. We found out other states were hot to try and get the business too. "We are aware of what other states and other communities were doing to incent them and it's a competitive game in this business. Actually if they would have gone to Missouri they were eligible for a 25 year tax abatement, which would have paid for the construction of their new facility," Kinsinger said.

But in the end, Kansas got the contract, and building is already underway, for the 50 thousand square foot expansion.

The one million dollars of the economic incentive will be paid to U.S Foodservice over the next 3 years, but the company must stay in Kansas for the next 10 years.