Good Foods Group, which moved its headquarters and food processing operations from Chicago to Pleasant Prairie in 2013 and has grown significantly since then, has been named the 2018 Business of the Year by the Kenosha Area Business Alliance.
Good Foods Group highlights the list of winners of KABA’s annual Ovation Awards, which recognize top performing Kenosha County businesses and business leaders, and their support of the community.
The award winners will be recognized at an event on Thursday, Nov. 1, from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. BizTimes Media is a partner with the event.
Good Foods Group is a manufacturer of all natural food products including guacamole, dips, salads and cold pressed juices.
The company outgrew its space in Chicago and searched for a new location, and in 2013 moved to a 57,000-square-foot facility in the LakeView Corporate Park in Pleasant Prairie. The company invested $5 million in the facility and had 50 employees at the facility initially. Since then the company has added nearly 500 employees and expanded its production space by 40,000 square feet.
Other Ovation Awards winners:
Chiappetta Shoes is the 2018 Small Business of the Year. Chiappetta Shoes has been a Kenosha institution since 1921. The fourth-generation family-owned business provides shoes, footwear and gifts as well as other services, including expert shoe repairs, custom in-house orthotics, licensed pedorthics, and online ordering/ecommerce.
Crystal Miller, the president of Frontida Assisted Living, is the 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year. Miller and her husband Steve began Frontida Assisted Living in 2009 with three facilities in Milwaukee. They now have 10 total locations. Earlier this year Frontida moved its headquarters to downtown Kenosha.
This year, KABA has replaced its Fast Five awards with the Forward Awards, which recognize companies or organizations that have expanded, invested or developed new programs or initiatives.
The 2018 Forward Award winners:
- Clark Dietz, a multi-disciplined consulting engineering firm that specializes in infrastructure planning, design & construction.
- Gateway Technical College, which introduced the Gateway Promise program in 2016 to help area high school students realize their dream of attending college and begin their path to career and personal success.
- Five Star Fabricating, a Twin Lakes company that manufactures composite bodies, polycarbonate windows, and thermoformed plastics for high performance cars and many other applications.
- Froedtert South, which is nearing completion on an Advanced Outpatient Surgical Wing at its St. Catherine’s Medical Center campus in Pleasant Prairie. The nearly 200,000-square-foot expansion will be complete in early 2019 and employ an additional 125 people
The sponsors for the Ovation Awards program are: Johnson Financial Group, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Centerpoint, Clifton Larson Allen, Bear Development, Insperity and Wegner CPAs.
