Buckeye Beans & Herbs Inc., of Spokane, has fired nine employees, including its president, and has shut down all dried-soup and pasta production, as part of a decision to get out of the specialty-food market, says its CEO, George G. Van Houten, who has taken charge of the financially ailing business.


We are not closing the company. This is really just an attempt to get faster. We are concentrating all of our resources and energies in fresh meals, which are being produced for Buckeye by Harrys Fresh Foods, of Portland, Ore., Van Houten says.


During the last four months, Buckeye has introduced more than 30 flavors of fresh soups, chowders, and chilis, and has begun a national rollout of the ready-to-eat products to grocery store chains, he says. Locally, the restaurant-quality, chef-made soups, which come in 11-ounce microwavable, ovenable containers and sell for around $2, are being sold through Tidymans and 7-Eleven stores, he says.


Harrys Fresh Foods also makes easy-to-prepare mini-lasagna and beef stroganoff dishes that Buckeye will be selling, so, Were still in the pasta business, but its just the fresh pasta business now, Van Houten says.


Buckeye bought an interest in Harrys Fresh Foods in December, and Rod Harris, who is founder and majority owner of that $15-million-a-year company, has a 10 percent ownership interest in Buckeye, Van Houten says.


What all of that means for Buckeyes operation here, which occupies a 36,000-square-foot building at 5959 N. Freya, remains to be seen. Although the companys answering-machine message says the business currently is closed for retooling and restructuring, Van Houten says a core staff of four people remains employed there. He says Buckeyes building likely will be turned into a sales-and-distribution center, since production activities have ceased and the building is a dry plant not well suited for USDA-approved, fresh-food preparation.


Caprock, a California-based investment group that now is an 82 percent shareholder in Buckeye, owns the building free and clear, Van Houten says. However, many of the details of Buckeyes shift in direction still havent been worked out yet, so its not known what the companys long-term space needs here might be, he says.


The nine people let go earlier this week included John J. OKeeffe, Buckeyes former chief financial officer who was named president of the company early last year and is a minority shareholder. Van Houten says Buckeye is seeking to sell the assets of its discontinued dried-soup and pasta operation, and, Its my hope that he (OKeeffe) will be part of somebodys plan to revive that enterprise. Another executive, Laura Mathiesen, who worked for five years as a consultant and broker to Buckeye and was named vice president of the company last July, resigned in December.


Company founders Jill and Doug Smith, who got out of the business last year, developed it over about 15 years into a national producer of soup, pasta, and bread mixes, and one of Spokanes top small-business success stories. Just five years ago, Inc. magazine included Buckeye in a listing of Americas 500 fastest-growing private businesses.


Van Houten contends, though, that in recent years the company hadnt innovated, despite a continuing rise in consumer demand for ready-to-eat foods. I think the industry has shifted in such a way that if youre not re-inventing the company on a systematic basis, youre going to be pressed out of business, he says.


Mathiesen says, however, that the recent radical change in direction was unnecessary in my opinion. They didnt need to kill the dry (product) lines. There was a substantial business there.