Minnie Sebree and her daughter, Claudia Sebree-Pressley.

Proposed central city food plant gets another state grant
By: Journal Staff
The Toledo Journal
Originally posted 10/13/2009 

Its planned opening is still years off, but a state lawmaker says it’s a sure thing.
”This is going to be real,” state Sen. Teresa Fedor said last week while participating in an announcement of another state grant to benefit the Aunt Minnie’s frozen food manufacturing company.
Announced by Sen. Fedor, Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, the company’s owners and other officials was a state grant of $243,282 to complete phase two of an environmental assessment of nine acres at 215 City Park Ave. – Aunt Minnie’s future home.
Through the efforts of Sen. Fedor and Organized Neighbors Yielding eXcellence (ONYX), mother-daughter owners Minnie Sebree and Claudia Sebree-Pressley have gained the support of the Ohio Department of Development, which helped arrange a $200,000 line of credit with an out-of-town bank and a $100,000 operations grant for new manufacturing equipment.
Sen. Fedor said the track record so far shows the project to bring a manufacturing plant that pays living wages to the central city will succeed.
”We keep getting awarded,” she said. ”Every time we apply for something, we’re awarded. Every time someone … hears about this project, they’re supportive. They see the potential.
”We’ll keep having press conferences until we see people walking through that new plant,” the senator added.
The previous press conference at the location – a former industrial site suspected of having petroleum and coal contaminants in the soil – was held slightly more than a year earlier, when the Sebrees announced their intention to ”come home” to Toledo. Both women live in Toledo but its plant currently is located in Perrysburg.
Not only do the owners of Aunt Minnie’s Food Service – which sells blackberry and peach cobbler, sweet potato pie and cornbread stuffing in several states – intend to move into the central city, they intend to employ residents of the central city.
”I would categorize this area right here as an area that’s disadvantaged and that needs jobs,” Ms. Sebree-Pressley said last week.
Still, that is a ways off. Joel Mazur, an environmental specialist for the city, said phase two of the ground contamination study could take eight months. He estimated it would be June of 2010 before an application for a grant to actually remediate the soil will be made, and that a reply from the state might come three months later.
Mayor Finkbeiner interjected when Ms. Sebree-Pressley was asked if the process was excruciatingly slow.
”What isn’t these days?” the mayor said. ”There just isn’t the private [investment] money. Everything is going slow. The Marina District, we’ve been working on that for 10 years. Money is just tight.”
He praised the business owners, who got their start in 1992 by operating a Southern style restaurant named Sebree’s, for sticking to their plan to grow their business.
”They have been battling and … they never entertained the thought of surrendering or giving up,” Mayor Finkbeiner said. ”They are the best and the brightest.”
The state of Louisiana had tried to talk the women into relocating Aunt Minnie’s there.
”It’s a very nice place to be but home is where our heart is,” Ms. Sebree-Pressley said.
Aunt Minnie’s is the only frozen food manufacturer in the United States owned by an African American mother and daughter. It recently hired seven more people for its Perrysburg plant.
”And we’re going to continue hiring,” Ms. Sebree-Pressley said. ”And now we’re going to have a state-of-the-art plant.”
She thanked Sen. Fedor and WilliAnn Moore, the president of ONYX, for their efforts on Aunt Minnie’s behalf. Mrs. Moore, in turn, predicted great things for the company.
”This plant is going to hire hundreds of people,” she said.
……………..As currently envisioned, the manufacturing plant could be a $5 million investment. Both Aunt Minnie… and ONYX will seek out private investors to raise the necessary capital.
Meanwhile, Sen. Fedor said she regularly purchases the company’s products, including one dish in particular.
”I also recommend that you try the blackberry cobbler,” she told reporters. ”I’m totally hooked. My husband doesn’t get a bite of it because I eat the whole thing myself.”