<p></p><p>The ShoEi Foods plant, just outside of Olivehurst, was severely damaged by a fire on June 1 -- but 2 1/2 months later, the company has almost finished building one of three large buildings that will store and process their walnuts. A large fire destroyed several buildings at Shoei Foods in Olivehurst late Saturday night.</p> <p>More</p> <p>"Every plan we made two months ago, we’re on time -- everything," said Don Soetaert, the director of the ShoEi plant. The fire consumed about 225,000 square feet of buildings on the plant's property. The blaze was so hot, it caused the concrete foundation to explode, said Rich Web, the Linda Fire Department chief. "Very large pieces, probably 5- to 10-pound chunks of concrete [were] flying through the air," Webb said. </p><p>After the fire, Soetaert worried the plant wouldn't be able to rebuild in time for what's expected to be a record harvest. The company conducted a quick assessment of the damage and decided to rebuild. With the plan, Soetaert decided to build three new even-larger buildings to replace the ones destroyed by flames. He had to move quickly. And now, construction crews already have a 52,000-square-foot processing facility almost finished. The concrete foundations for two larger storage facilities will be poured soon. </p><p>Soetaert said the plant will receive its first shipment of walnuts around Sept. 3. "We’ll do about 20 million pounds of processing here," said Soetaert, pointing to the new processing plant. "We have two multi-million-dollar machines that are going to be installed here." </p><p>Before the fire, the ShoEi plant processed about 50 million pounds of walnuts every year. With the new buildings, which will be bigger, Soetaert expects that number to rise. Soetaert said the company likely will have to hire more people once the new buildings are in place and the walnuts are trucked in to the facility. </p><p> </p><br><p></p>