By Marcy Nicholson
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The maker of Folgers coffee is moving some inventory out of the New Orleans area to Kansas City as a precaution ahead of hurricane season, Procter & Gamble Co.'s (PG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) global product supply officer Keith Harrison said on Monday.
"We have moved in advance of this fall, and are continuing to move, coffee inventories out of the area so we will have more coffee inventories in the non-hurricane area. We think we're set up well for this fall's hurricane season," Harrison said at the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit in New York.
The company has added capacity to its Kansas City coffee plant, increasing its capacity outside of New Orleans.
"We believe at this point that those steps will hold us in good stead should we have another hurricane. We will have not only sufficient inventory to support our shipments but our inventory will be more distributed," Harrison said.
Kansas City can, however, experience devastating tornadoes.
"The impact of tornadoes, although severe where they hit, aren't as widespread as a hurricane," Harrison said.
P&G produces the well-known Folgers coffee. Production at the New Orleans plant, the world's biggest coffee plant where 90 percent of Folgers coffee is processed, was halted in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast on August 29.
"We had not planned on a complete collapse of the infrastructure surrounding the site so we had no gas, no water, no electricity, no access to the site," Harrison said. Continued...
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