DOUGLASVILLE, GA. — Home Chef, a subsidiary of The Kroger Co., is opening a new production facility near Atlanta. The meal kit company leased a 181,000-square-foot facility in Douglasville, Ga.

The production center will be Home Chef’s first single-tenant facility. It also will be the company’s first facility to incorporate a full-service kitchen for cooking and batch production of ingredients to be used in its meal solutions. The 6,000-square-foot space will handle the cooking of vegetables, starches and grains as well as in-house sauce production.

The new space will support the company’s e-commerce meal delivery business as well as its retail needs.

“Our Atlanta facility is a foundational part of delivering high-quality meals to our customers in the south and beyond,” said Erik Jensen, chief executive officer of Home Chef. “This brand-new center will make our production and distribution even more efficient, so we can continue to bring fans easy, delicious recipes.”

Home Chef offers recipes in a range of formats, including minimal-mess oven-ready dishes, fast and fresh meal kits and a culinary collection for more adventurous home cooks. The company, which was acquired by Kroger in 2018 for $200 million, has had operations in the south since 2017. The production facility in Douglasville is expected to create nearly 700 new jobs.