BRISTOL, Va. – A deal sealed late last year to keep the old Moore’s Potato Chip plant operating continues to bear fruit for the city.

It was almost a year ago that previous owner Wise Snack Foods announced plans to shut down the plant on Pinecrest Lane and idle 155 employees. After five months of negotiations, however, the city agreed to buy the plant and lease it to a new tenant, Snack Alliance. By the time the deal was settled, just 77 employees remained.

Now, however, the plant employs 189 and could use another 20 workers, Snack Alliance Chairman Pat Lindenbach said.

The factory operates 24 hours a day and occasionally stays open on weekends to meet the growing demand for its products.

Snack Alliance focuses on the private label market, producing generic snacks for grocery stores to sell under their own brand name. It’s a business that’s growing in the United States and internationally, Lindenbach said.

That’s why the company invested $10 million to double the factory’s capacity, Lindenbach said.

"We’re now bursting at the seams," he said.

The City Council agreed Tuesday night to lease 20,000 square feet at an empty factory near Interstate 81’s Exit 7 to accommodate Snack Alliance’s growing need for space.

The company will use the space to package a new product that’s selling in Wal-Mart stores nationwide. The snack pack of 24 small bags of chips could begin selling in other grocery chains around the country in the next few months as well, Lindenbach said.

The packaging operation already employs 25 people and could double in size by the end of the year, Lindenbach said.

The city has owned the old Cross Stone Products facility at 103 Thomas Road for more than two years and has been looking for a tenant for almost that long.

The City Council agreed to purchase the building to help keep a local manufacturer in business. When that business folded, the city was left with a vacant building.

Things couldn’t have worked out better from Lindenbach’s perspective, though.

"They really have made it easy to do business here," Lindenbach said of the city officials he’s worked with. "I’ve done lots of deals in lots of cities. I view these folks as the most professional I’ve dealt with."

Eventually, Lindenbach said he’d like to move the packaging operation closer to the production plant. The city’s Dale Gordon Industrial Park is almost adjacent to the plant and could be an ideal location, Lindenbach said.