Cacique USA, a Monrovia-based producer of Mexican-style cheese, cream, yogurt and chorizo, has started construction of a food processing factory in Amarillo, Texas.
The 200,000-square-foot facility is set to come online in the fall of 2022 and employ about 200 workers.

Cacique’s $88 million capital investment will be partially offset by a $1.1 million grant from the Texas Enterprise Fund and an abatement of taxes on the construction and equipment costs for a 10-year period from the Amarillo Economic Development Corp. and Amarillo’s City Council.

The AEDC is also allotting 55 acres of land to the dairy producer to build the facility and will pay $2,500 in relocation expenses for up to 300 Cacique employees moving to the area.

“After an extensive, national search, we are very happy to select Amarillo,” Chief Executive Gil de Cardenas said in a statement. “It’s a vibrant, thriving and diverse melting pot of cultures, and we’re thrilled to become part of this local community as we put down some new Cacique family roots in the great state of Texas.”

The groundbreaking of the Texas facility follows a January round of funding led by Baupost Group, a Boston-based investment manager. Proceeds from the minority investment were earmarked for accelerating the “brand’s continued rapid growth nationwide,” according to the company.

De Cardenas’ parents, Jennie and Gilbert, immigrated to the United States from Cuba in 1971 and two years later founded Cacique in Lakewood. The company moved to City of Industry in 1985 and to Monrovia in 2016.

It acquired Arizona-based El Sol Foods in 2019. The deal added a line of refrigerated salsas to Cacique’s product offerings. The company operates a dairy processing plant in City of Industry; a meat processing plant in Cedar City, Utah; and a salsa factory in Gilbert, Ariz.