Thistle Chooses Vacaville for their Production and Distribution Center
May 03 2019The City of Vacaville and the Solano Economic Development Corporation (EDC) are pleased and excited to announce the decision of Thistle to expand into Solano and to locate their primary ready-to-eat meal production and packaging facility in Vacaville.
Thistle is a modern, tech-enabled, organic food and nutrition company founded in San Francisco in 2014 by husband and wife team Ashwin Cheriyan and Shiri Avnery. The company’s mission is to make it easy for everyone to get and stay healthy while improving the sustainability of our food system. Thistle develops and delivers fresh, fully-prepared, delicious and nutritious plant-forward meals, juices & snacks right to your door for customers in California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Utah and Nevada.
All of their foods are plant-forward, gluten and dairy-free, and primarily organic and sourced locally. The company has witnessed significant growth in the last 3 years - and with growth came the need to graduate to a larger additional facility.
The new operations will be located at 771 Eubanks Drive, and the company will occupy 79,000 sf to start. The operation will host over 250 employees in the initial phase of operations, with a diverse array of skill sets. The company will be purchasing natural ingredients, creating and designing new menus, and producing, packaging and distributing meals from this facility to deliver across the West Coast and beyond.
Thistle made the decision to locate to Vacaville over other locations in California and Nevada for several reasons: it is still within the greater Bay Area and close to their corporate HQ in San Francisco as well as other operations in the East Bay; the facility allows easy access to their major markets by proximity and transportation links; the affordability both for employees and the business was important; and the continued support and teamwork of Vacaville, the Solano EDC, PG&E and the Governor’s Office of Business & Economic Development in getting the project off the ground.
“We are proud to have been a part of the team that helped Thistle make this new facility in Vacaville and Solano a reality. Thistle is a fantastic, community-oriented company, and it is a great example of food-related companies of the future seeing our region as optimal for their growth in the U.S.” said Barry Nelson, Solano EDC Board Chair and President and CEO of Travis Credit Union.
We are truly excited about Thistle’s decision and choice of Vacaville. This high profile and exciting firm will bring tremendous investment and jobs to the region, its desire to be a great community partner, including making sure that all usable ingredients not used in their meals goes to people who need food in our community, and it will be a great new service to residents. Where possible, Thistle locally sources its products, which could be a great opportunity for local growers and producers as well.
Thistle will be transitioning into the space over the next six months. The City of Vacaville will be hosting an information session and job fair for potential employees.
We would also like to thank the real estate professionals that helped make this deal happen, Ryan Davidson of Lee & Associates and Brooks Pedder of Cushman & Wakefield.
For further information please contact:
Christopher Haas
Senior Director of Operations
chris@thistle.co
Robert Burris, President and CEO
Solano Economic Development Corporation
robert@solanoedc.org
(707) 864-1855
Don Burrus
Economic Development
City of Vacaville
Donald.burrus@cityofvacaville.com
(707) 449-5165
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