MILWAUKEE – Frozen pizza manufacturer Palermo Villa Inc., recently announced that it would expand its production to a new location in Jefferson, Wis.

The company said the expansion would create more than 200 new jobs across the company that include salaried management positions, production associates and quality, maintenance, warehouse and sanitation positions.

The facility in Jefferson was previously owned by Tyson Foods and ran under the name LD Foods until it closed in 2021.

Palemro’s said that the company would be adding specialized equipment to the facility for additional production capacity with at least two pizza topping lines.

The company expects the updated plant to be running at full capacity by late summer 2023 and would produce more than 50 million frozen pizzas per year.

“Over the past three years, we’ve added over 400 jobs through expansions at our headquarters in Milwaukee; in 2020 we installed a Rising Crust bakery line and a fourth topping production line that allowed us to hire more employees and increase capacity,” said Giacomo Falluca, chief executive officer of Palermo’s. “The Jefferson site will allow us to expand and increase capacity again. While we considered expansion plans in multiple geographic locations, timing and availability of space led us to decide to expand in Jefferson.”

The pizza company said the facility expansion was necessary due to increased consumer demand for its brands like Palermo’s, Urban Pie, Connie’s, Screamin’ Sicilian, and Surfer Boy Pizza.