Food Manufacturing in New Jersey is important. It represents 10% of New Jersey’s Gross State Product. This amounts to $9.6 billion in sales and $4.5 billion in value added (that is, the remainder from sales after the cost of external purchases of goods and services are subtracted). Food manufacturing pays $1.0 billion in wages. Of twenty manufacturing sectors in New Jersey, the food manufacturing sector ranks second in both value of shipments and value added.
CAFT was founded in 1985, a period when most manufacturing in New Jersey was decreasing at a fairly rapid rate.
It is very difficult to determine the impact of a research and development activity upon an industry sector. However, we believe that the Center played an important role in the following statistics for the food manufacturing sector (that compare twenty New Jersey manufacturing sectors during the period 1987 through 1992): third in least employment decline, second lowest in rate of employment decline, fifth in growth of value of shipments and fifth in growth of value added.
